ANNE BRADSTREET

1612-1672

This Book by Any yet unread,

I leave for you when I am dead,

That, being gone, here you may find

What was your liveing mother’s mind.

Make use of what I leave in Love

And God shall blesse you from above.

Here sleeps the Queen; this is the royal bed,

O’ th’ damask rose, sprung from the white and red,

Whose sweet perfume fills the all-filling air,

This Rose is wither’d, once so lovely fair;

On neither tree did grow such rose before,

The greater was our gain, our loss the more.