Page:The works of Anne Bradstreet in prose and verse.djvu/173

 Poetical Addrejfes to the Author. 87

Though (for your fake) to fome this be permitted, [vii]

To print, yet wifh I many better witted;

Their vanity make this to be enquired,

If Women are with wit and fence infpired:

Yet when your Works fhall come to publick view,

'Twill be affirm'd, 'twill be confirm'd by you:

And I, when ferioufly I had revolved

What you had done, I prefently refolved.

Theirs was the Perfons, not the Sexes failing,

And therefore did be-fpeak a modeft vailing.

You have acutely in Eliza's ditty,*

Acquitted Women, elfe I might with pitty.

Have wifht them all to womens Works to look.

And never more to meddle with their book.

What you have done, the Sun fliall witnefs bear.

That for a womans Work 'tis very rare;

And if the Nine, vouchfafe the Tenth a place,

I think they rightly may yield you that grace.

But leaft I fhould exceed, and too much love, Should too too much endear'd affe6tion move, To fuper-adde in praifes, I fhall ceafe, Leaft while I pleafe myfelf I fhould difpleafe The longing Reader, who may chance complain, And fo requite my love with deep difdain; That I your filly Servant, ftand i' th' Porch, Lighting your Sun-light, with my blinking Torch; Hindring his minds content, his fweet repofe. Which your delightful Poems do difclofe,

Elizabeth of Happy Memory."
 * See her Elegy "In Honour of that High and Mighty Princefs Qiieen

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