Page:Anne Bradstreet and her time.djvu/260

224 Then wholly perish'd Earths ignoble race, And to this day impairs her beauteous face, That after times shall never feel like woe, Her confirm'd sons behold my colour'd bow. Much might I say of wracks, but that Ile spare, And now give place unto our Sister Air.

There is a mild self-complacency, a sunny and contented assertion about "sister Air," that must have proved singularly aggravating to the others, who, however, make no sign as to the final results, the implication being, that she is after all the one absolutely indispensable agent. But to end nowhere, each side fully convinced in its own mind that the point had been carried in its own favor, was so eminently in the spirit of the time, that there be no wonder at the silence as to the real victor, though it is surprising that Mistress Bradstreet let slip so excellent an opportunity for the moral so dear to the Puritan mind.

Content (quoth Air) to speak the last of you, Yet am not ignorant first was my due: I do suppose you'l yield without controul I am the breath of every living soul. Mortals, what one of you that loves not me Abundantly more than my Sisters three? And though you love fire, Earth and Water well Yet Air beyond all these you know t' excell. I ask the man condemn'd that's neer his death, How gladly should his gold purchase his breath, And all the wealth that ever earth did give, How freely should it go so he might live: No earth, thy witching trash were all but vain, If my pure air thy sons did not sustain, The famish'd thirsty man that craves supply, His moving reason is, give least I dye, So loth he is to go though nature's spent To bid adieu to his dear Element.