Page:Anne Bradstreet and her time.djvu/88

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72
ANNE BRADSTREET.

Upon a Fit of Sickness, Anno. 1632.

Ætatis suœ, 19.

Twice ten years old not fully told since nature gave me breath,
My race is run, my thread is spun, lo! here is fatal Death.
All men must dye, and so must I, this cannot be revoked,
For Adam's sake, this word God spake, when he so high provoke'd.
Yet live I shall, this life's but small, in place of highest bliss,
Where I shall have all I can crave, no life is like to this.
For what's this life but care and strife? since first we came from womb,
Our strength doth waste, our time doth hast and then we go to th' Tomb.
O Bubble blast, how long can'st last? that always art a breaking,
No sooner blown, but dead and gone ev'n as a word that's speaking,
O whil'st I live this grace me give, I doing good may be,
Then death's arrest I shall count best because it's thy degree.
Bestow much cost, there's nothing lost to make Salvation sure,
O great's the gain, though got with pain, comes by profession pure.
The race is run, the field is won, the victory's mine, I see,
For ever know thou envious foe the foyle belongs to thee.

This is simply very pious and unexceptionable doggerel and no one would admit such fact more quickly than Mistress Anne herself, who laid it away in after days in her drawer, with a smile at the metre and a sigh for the miserable time it chronicled. There were many of them, for among the same papers is a shorter burst of trouble:

Upon Some Distemper of Body.

In anguish of my heart repleat with woes,
And wasting pains, which best my body knows,
In tossing slumbers on my wakeful bed,
Bedrencht with tears that flow from mournful head,
Till nature had exhausted all her store,
Then eyes lay dry disabled to weep more;
And looking up unto his Throne on high,
Who sendeth help to those in misery;