Page:The works of Anne Bradstreet in prose and verse.djvu/198

 112 Anne Bradjl reefs Works.

Now muft I fliew mine adverfe quality,

And how I oft work mans mortality:

He Ibmetimes finds, maugre his toiling pain

Thirties and thorns where he expe6ted grain.

My fap to plants and trees I muft not grant, [13]

The vine, the olive, and the figtree want:

The Corn and Hay do fall before the're mown.

And buds from fruitfull trees as foon as ' blown ;

Then dearth prevails, that nature to fuffice

The Mother on her tender infant flyes;^'

The hulband knows no wife, nor father fons,

But to all outrages their hunger runs:

DreadfuU examples foon I might produce.

But to fuch Auditors 'twere of no ufe.

Again when Delvers dare in hope of gold

To ope thofe veins of Mine, audacious bold:

While they thus in mine entrails love ^ to dive,

Before they know, they are inter'd alive.

Y'aftrighted wights appal'd, how do ye fhake.

When once you feel me your foundation quake?

Becaufe in the Abbyffe of my dark womb

Your cities and your felves I oft intomb:

O dreadfull Sepulcher! that this is true

Dathan * and all his company well knew,

i before thej'r. J The tender mother on her Infant fljes. k feem.

pear clearly from the account in Numbers, ch. xvi., whether Korah was swallowed up in the earth with Dathan and Abiram, or whether he was among those destroyed bj the fire. See Patrick's "Commentary," and Smith's " Bible Dictionary."
 * The first edition has " Korah " instead of "Dathan." It does not ap-

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