Page:Anne Bradstreet and her time.djvu/256

240 The husband knows no wife, nor father sons, But to all outrages their hunger runs: Dreadful examples soon I might produce, But to such Auditors 'twere of no use, Again when Delvers dare in hope of gold To ope those veins of Mine, audacious bold; While they thus in mine entrails love to dive, Before they know, they are inter'd alive. Y' affrighted nights appal'd, how do ye shake, When once you feel me your foundation quake? Because in the Abysse of my dark womb Your cities and yourselves I oft intomb: O dreadful Sepulcher! that this is true Dathan and all his company well knew, So did that Roman far more stout than wise Bur'ing himself alive for honours prize. And since fair Italy full sadly knowes What she hath lost by these remed'less woes. Again what veins of poyson in me lye, Some kill outright, and some do stupifye: Nay into herbs and plants it sometimes creeps, In heats & colds & gripes & drowzy sleeps; Thus I occasion death to man and beast When food they seek, & harm mistrust the least, Much might I say of the hot Libian sand Which rise like tumbling Billows on the Land Wherein Cambyses Armie was o'rethrown (but winder Sister, twas when you have blown) I'le say no more, but this thing add I must Remember Sons, your mould is of my dust And after death whether interr'd or burn'd As Earth at first so into Earth returned.

Water, in no whit dismayed by pretensions which have left no room for any future claimant, proceeds to prove her right to the championship, by a tirade which shows her powers quite equal to those of her sisters, considering that her work in the floods has evidenced itself quite as potent as anything Fire may claim in the future.