TO HER HUSBAND;
Written in the prospect of death, 1640.
How soon, my dear, death may my steps attend,
How soon't may be thy lot to lose thy friend,
We both are ignorant. Yet love bids me
These farewell lines to recommend to thee,
That, when that knot's untied that made us one,
I may seem thine, who in effect am none.
And, if I see not half my days that's due,
What Nature would God grant to yours and you.
The many faults that well you know I have
Let be interred in my oblivious grave;
If any worth or virtue is in me;
Let that live freshly in my memory.
And when thou feel'st no grief, as I no harms,
Yet love thy dead, who long lay in thine arms;
And, when thy loss shall be repaid with gains,
Look to my little babes, my dear remains,
And, if thou lov'st thyself or lovest me,
These oh, protect from stepdame's injury!
And, if chance to thine eyes doth bring this verse,
With some sad sighs honour my absent hearse,
And kiss this paper, for thy love's dear sake,
Who with salt tears this last farewell doth take.
Anne Bradstreet
* * * * *
PASSING AWAY
Was it the chime of a tiny bell,
That came so sweet to my dreaming ear,
Like the silvery tones of a fairy's shell,
That he winds on the beach so mellow and clear,
When the winds and the waves lie together asleep,
And the moon and the fairy are watching the deep,
She dispensing her silvery light,
And he his notes as silvery quite,
While the boatman listens and ships his oar,
To catch the music that comes from the shore?—
Hark! the notes on my ear that play,
Are set to words! as they float, they say,
"Passing away! passing away!"
But, no; it was not a fairy's shell,
Blown on the beach so mellow and clear:
Nor was it the tongue of a silver bell
Striking the hours that fell on my ear,
As I lay in my dream: yet was it a chime
That told of the flow of the stream of Time,
For a beautiful clock from the ceiling hung,
And a plump little girl for a pendulum, swung,
(As you've sometimes seen, in a little ring
That hangs in his cage, a canary bird swing)
And she held to her bosom a budding bouquet,
And as she enjoyed it, she seemed to say,
"Passing away! passing away!"
Oh, how bright were the wheels, that told
Of the lapse of time as they moved round slow!
And the hands as they swept o'er the dial of gold
Seemed to point to the girl below.
And lo! she had changed;—in a few short hours,
Her bouquet had become a garland of flowers,
That she held in her outstretched hands, and flung
This way and that, as she, dancing, swung
In the fullness of grace and womanly pride,
That told me she soon was to be a bride;
Yet then, when expecting her happiest day,
In the same sweet voice I heard her say,
"Passing away! passing away!"
While I gazed on that fair one's cheek, a shade
Of thought, or care, stole softly over,
Like that by a cloud in a summer's day made,
Looking down on a field of blossoming clover.
The rose yet lay on her cheek, but its flush
Had something lost of its brilliant blush;
And the light in her eye, and the light on the wheels,
That marched so calmly round above her,
Was a little dimmed—as when evening steals
Upon noon's hot face:—yet one couldn't but love her;
For she looked like a mother whose first babe lay
Rocked on her breast, as she swung all day;
And she seemed in the same silver' tone to say,
"Passing away! passing away!"
While yet I looked, what a change there came!
Her eye was quenched, and her cheek was wan;
Stooping and staffed was her withered frame,
Yet just as busily swung she on:
The garland beneath her had fallen to dust;
The wheels above her were eaten with rust;
The hands, that over the dial swept,
Grew crook'd and tarnished, but on they kept;
And still there came that silver tone
From the shrivelled lips of the toothless crone,
(Let me never forget, to my dying day,
The tone or the burden of that lay)—
"PASSING AWAY! PASSING AWAY!"
Pierpont.