Though the series of quaternions which form the major part of the poems, have separate titles and were written at various times, they are in fact a single poem, containing sixteen personified characters, all of them giving their views with dreary facility and all of them to the Puritan mind, eminently correct and respectable personalities. The "Four Seasons" won especial commendations from her most critical readers, but for all of them there seems to have been a delighted acceptance of every word this phenomenal woman had thought it good to pen. Even fifty years ago, a woman's work, whether prose or verse, which came before the public, was hailed with an enthusiastic appreciation, it is difficult to-day to comprehend, Mrs. S. C. Hall emphasizing this in a paragraph on Hannah More, who held much the relation to old England that Anne Bradstreet did to the New. "In this age, when female talent is so rife—when, indeed, it is not too much to say women have fully sustained their right to equality with men in reference to all the productions of the mind—it is difficult to comprehend the popularity, almost amounting to adoration, with which a woman writer was regarded little more than half a century ago. Mediocrity was magnified into genius, and to have printed a book, or to have written even a tolerable poem, was a passport into the very highest society."
Even greater veneration was felt in days when many women, even of good birth, could barely write their own names, and if Anne Bradstreet had left behind her nothing but the quaternions, she would long have ranked as a poet deserving of all the elegies and anagrammatic tributes the Puritan divine loved to manufacture. The "Four Seasons," which might have been written in Lincolnshire and holds not one suggestion of the new life and methods the colonists were fast learning, may have been enjoyed because of its reminders of the old home. Certainly the "nightingale and thrush" did not sing under Cambridge windows, nor did the "primrose pale," fill the hands of the children who ran over the New England meadows. It seems to have been her theory that certain well established forms must be preserved, and so she wrote the conventional phrases of the poet of the seventeenth century, only a line or two indicating the real power of observation she failed to exercise.
THE FOUR SEASONS OF THE YEAR.
SPRING.
Another four I've left yet to bring on,
Of four times four the last Quarternion,
The Winter, Summer, Autumn & the Spring,
In season all these Seasons I shall bring;
Sweet Spring like man in his Minority,
At present claim'd, and had priority.
With Smiling face and garments somewhat green,
She trim'd her locks, which late had frosted been,
Nor hot nor cold, she spake, but with a breath,
Fit to revive, the nummed earth from death.
Three months (quoth she) are 'lotted to my share
March, April, May of all the rest most fair.
Tenth of the first, Sol into Aries enters,
And bids defiance to all tedious winters,
Crosseth the Line, and equals night and day,
(Stil adds to th' last til after pleasant May)
And now makes glad the darkned nothern nights
Who for some months have seen but starry lights.
Now goes the Plow-man to his merry toyle,
He might unloose his winter locked soyle;
The Seeds-man too, doth lavish out his grain,
In hope the more he casts, the more to gain;
The Gardener now superfluous branches lops,
And poles erect for his young clambring hops.
Now digs then sowes his herbs, his flowers & roots
And carefully manures his trees of fruits.
The Pleiades their influence now give,
And all that seemed as dead afresh doth live.
The croaking frogs, whom nipping winter kil'd
Like birds now chirp, and hop about the field,
The Nightingale, the black-bird and the Thrush
Now tune their layes, on sprayes of every bush.
The wanton frisking Kid, and soft fleec'd Lambs
Do jump and play before their feeding Dams,
The tender tops of budding grass they crop,
They joy in what they have, but more in hope:
For though the frost hath lost his binding power,
Yet many a fleece of snow and stormy shower
Doth darken Sol's bright eye, makes us remember
The pinching North-west wind of cold December.
My Second month is April, green and fair,
Of longer dayes, and a more temperate Air:
The Sun in Taurus keeps his residence,
And with his warmer beams glareeth from thence
This is the month whose fruitful showers produces
All set and sown for all delights and uses:
The Pear, the Plum, and Apple-tree now flourish
The grass grows long the hungry beast to nourish
The Primrose pale, and azure violet
Among the virduous grass hath nature set,
That when the Sun on's Love (the earth) doth shine
These might as lace set out her garments fine.
The fearfull bird his little house now builds
In trees and walls, in Cities and in fields.
The outside strong, the inside warm and neat;
A natural Artificer compleat.
The clocking hen her chirping chickins leads
With wings & beak defends them from the gleads
My next and last is fruitfull pleasant May,
Wherein the earth is clad in rich aray,
The Sun now enters loving Gemini,
And heats us with the glances of his eye,
Our thicker rayment makes us lay aside
Lest by his fervor we be torrified.
All flowers the Sun now with his beams discloses,
Except the double pinks and matchless Roses.
Now swarms the busy, witty, honey-Bee,
Whose praise deserves a page from more than me
The cleanly Huswife's Dary's now in th' prime,
Her shelves and firkins fill'd for winter time.
The meads with Cowslips, Honey-suckles dight,
One hangs his head, the other stands upright:
But both rejoice at th' heaven's clear smiling face,
More at her showers, which water them apace.
For fruits my Season yields the early Cherry,
The hasty Peas, and wholsome cool Strawberry.
More solid fruits require a longer time,
Each Season hath its fruit, so hath each Clime:
Each man his own peculiar excellence,
But none in all that hath preheminence.
Sweet fragrant Spring, with thy short pittance fly
Let some describe thee better than can I.
Yet above all this priviledg is thine,
Thy dayes still lengthen without least decline:
SUMMER.
When Spring had done, the Summer did begin,
With melted tauny face, and garments thin,
Resembling Fire, Choler, and Middle age,
As Spring did Air, Blood, Youth in 's equipage.
Wiping the sweat from of her face that ran,
With hair all wet she pussing thus began;
Bright June, July and August hot are mine,
In th' first Sol doth in crabbed Cancer shine.
His progress to the North now's fully done,
Then retrograde must be my burning Sun,
Who to his Southward Tropick still is bent,
Yet doth his parching heat but more augment
Though he decline, because his flames so fair,
Have throughly dry'd the earth, and heat the air.
Like as an Oven that long time hath been heat,
Whose vehemency at length doth grow so great,
That if you do withdraw her burning store,
'Tis for a time as fervent as before.
Now go those foolick Swains, the Shepherd Lads
To wash the thick cloth'd flocks with pipes full glad
In the cool streams they labour with delight
Rubbing their dirty coats till they look white;
Whose fleece when finely spun and deeply dy'd
With Robes thereof Kings have been dignified,
Blest rustick Swains, your pleasant quiet life,
Hath envy bred in Kings that were at strife,
Careless of worldly wealth you sing and pipe,
Whilst they'r imbroyl'd in wars & troubles rife:
Wich made great Bajazet cry out in 's woes,
Oh happy shepherd which hath not to lose.
Orthobulus, nor yet Sebastia great,
But whist'leth to thy flock in cold and heat.
Viewing the Sun by day, the Moon by night
Endimions, Dianaes dear delight,
Upon the grass resting your healthy limbs,
By purling Brooks looking how fishes swims,
If pride within your lowly Cells ere haunt,
Of him that was Shepherd then King go vaunt.
This moneth the Roses are distil'd in glasses,
Whose fragrant smel all made perfumes surpasses
The cherry, Gooseberry are now in th' prime,
And for all sorts of Pease, this is the time.
July my next, the hott'st in all the year,
The sun through Leo now takes his Career,
Whose flaming breath doth melt us from afar,
Increased by the star Ganicular,
This month from Julius Ceasar took its name,
By Romans celebrated to his fame.
Now go the Mowers to their flashing toyle,
The Meadowes of their riches to dispoyle,
With weary strokes, they take all in their way,
Bearing the burning heat of the long day.
The forks and Rakes do follow them amain,
Wich makes the aged fields look young again,
The groaning Carts do bear away their prize,
To Stacks and Barns where it for Fodder lyes.
My next and last is August fiery hot
(For much, the Southward Sun abateth not)
This Moneth he keeps with Vigor for a space,
The dry'ed Earth is parched with his face.
August of great Augustus took its name,
Romes second Emperour of lasting fame,
With sickles now the bending Reapers goe
The rustling tress of terra down to mowe;
And bundles up in sheaves, the weighty wheat,
Which after Manchet makes for Kings to eat:
The Barly, Rye and Pease should first had place,
Although their bread have not so white a face.
The Carter leads all home with whistling voyce.
He plow'd with pain, but reaping doth rejoice,
His sweat, his toyle, his careful wakeful nights,
His fruitful Crop abundantly requites.
Now's ripe the Pear, Pear-plumb and Apricock,
The prince of plumbs, whose stone's as hard as Rock
The Summer seems but short, the Autumn hasts
To shake his fruits, of most delicious tasts
Like good old Age, whose younger juicy Roots
Hath still ascended, to bear goodly fruits.
Until his head be gray, and strength be gone.
Yet then appears the worthy deeds he'th done:
To feed his boughs exhausted hath his Sap,
Then drops his fruit into the eaters lap.