Page:Anne Bradstreet and her time.djvu/116

100 Who can of right better demand the same? Then may your worthy self from whom it came?"

As at Cambridge, and in far greater degree, she was cut off from much that had held resources there. At the worst, only a few miles had separated them from what was fast becoming the center and soul of the Colony. But Ipswich shut them in, and life for both Mistress Dudley and her daughter was an anxious one. The General Court called for the presence of both Dudley and Bradstreet, the latter spending much of his time away, and some of the tenderest and most natural of Anne Bradstreet's poems, was written at this time, though regarded as too purely personal to find place in any edition of her poems. The quiet but fervent love between them had deepened with every year, and though no letters remain, as with Winthrop, to evidence the steady and intense affection of both, the "Letter to her Husband, absent upon some Publick employment," holds all the proof one can desire.

My head, my heart, mine Eyes, my life, my more, My joy, my Magazine of earthly store. If two be one as surely thou and I, How stayest thou there, whilst I at Ipswich lie? So many steps, head from the heart to sever, If but a neck, soon would we be together; I like the earth this season mourn in black My Sun is gone so far in 's Zodiack, Whom whilst I joyed, nor storms nor frosts I felt, His warmth such frigid colds did cause to melt. My chilled limbs now nummed lye forlorn, Return, return sweet Sol, from Capricorn; In this dead time, alas, what can I more Than view those fruits which through thy heat I bore? Which sweet contentment yield me for a space,