Chapter Puritan Poetry in New England of Index by Simonds History of American Literature

Hybla's top,
There where I might those fragrant flowers lop,
Whence did sweet odors flow, and honey- spangles drop."¹

Let us now read a few stanzas written by Anne Bradstreet herself, taken from her best known and most attractive poem, Contemplations. It was written late in her life, at her home in Andover, and is properly described as "a genuine expression of poetic feeling in the presence of nature."

"I heard the merry grasshopper then sing,
The black-clad cricket bear a second part,
They kept one tune, and played on the same string,
Seeming to glory in their little art.
Shall creatures abject thus their voices raise?
And in their kind resound their maker's praise,
Whilst I, as mute, can warble forth no higher lays?

"Under the cooling shadow of a stately Elm,
Close state I by a goodly River's side,
Where gliding streams the Rocks did overwhelm;
A lonely place with pleasures dignifi'd.
I once that lov'd the shady woods so well,
Now thought the rivers did the trees excel,
And if the sun would ever shine there would I dwell.

"While musing thus with contemplation fed,
And thousand fancies buzzing in my brain,
The sweet tongu'd Philomel percht o'er my head,
And chanted forth a most melodious strain,
Which rapt me so with wonder and delight,
I judg'd my hearing better than my sight,
And wisht me wings with her awhile to take my flight."

A few months before Anne Bradstreet's death, she composed the following lines, which illustrate the aspirations of Puritanism in their noblest form: --

"As weary pilgrim now at rest
Hugs with delight his silent nest,
His wasted limbs now lie full soft,
That miry steps have trodden oft,
Pleases himself to think upon
His dangers past and travails done;

"A pilgrim I, in earth perplexed,
With sins, with cares and sorrows vexed,
By age and pains brought to decay,
And my clay house mouldering away,
Oh, how I long to be at rest
And soar on high among the blest."

Michael Wigglesworth, 1631-1705.

While Mrs. Bradstreet's verse at its best exhibits the highest poetical accomplishment of seventeenth- century Puritanism in New England, there was one other Puritan versifier whose inspiration appealed yet more strongly to contemporary minds. This most popular of early American poets was Rev.Michael Wigglesworth, minister at Malden, Massachusetts, author of a tremendous and dismal epic, surcharged with the extreme Calvinism of the time. This masterpiece of Puritan theological belief is entitled The Day of Doom; it was published in 1662, and for a hundred years remained -- as Lowell expresses it -- "the solace of every fireside" in the northern colonies.

The Day of Doom.

This long and desolate composition is an imaginative account of the Last Judgment. The voice of the trumpet is heard summoning the living and the dead before the dreadful bar.

"Some hide themselves in Caves and Delves
   in places underground.
Some rashly leap into the Deep,
   to scape by being drowned:
Some to the Rocks (O senseless blocks!)
   and woody mountains run
That there they might this fearful sight,
   and dreaded Presence shun."

In this jingling ballad measure, so strangely inappropriate to his solemn theme, the reverend author pursues his gloomy way. It is not well to linger over this grotesque presentation of mediaeval art and logic; yet it is through these crude expressions of the early literature that we are brought in closest touch with some phases of the Puritan mind. First we are given the appeals of the condemned; the children argue with reference to Adam's fall: --

"Not we, but he ate of the Tree,
   whose fruit was interdicted:
Yet on us all of his sad Fall,
   the punishment's inflicted.
How could we sin that had not been,
   or how is his sin our
Without consent, which to prevent,
   we never had a power?"