Page:The works of Anne Bradstreet in prose and verse.djvu/71

 INTRODUCTION. Ixi

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��. The forests were still stocked with wild beasts, and there was constant fear of assaults and depredations by the In- dians. She wandered in the woods, however, and found great pleasure in meditating on their ever winning charms, their grand and quiet beauty. By far the best of all her "Poems" was the result of one of these rambles. It ap- peared for the first time in the second edition, under the name of "Contemplations."* She describes with great spirit the sights and sounds of the forest, the fields and the stream, and makes us wish that she had done more in this style, for which many of the poets of her time were distinguished. It was doubtless by the side of the untamed Merrimac, before its rushing waters were made to pour through the immense structures which now line its banks, that she sat and pondered. The great dam which now spans the river at Lawrence is only two miles from the spot where the first settlement of Andover was made, and where Mrs. Bradstreet lived when she wrote, —

" Under the cooling fhadow of a ftatelj Elm Clofe fate I by a goodly Rivers fide, Where gliding flreams the Rocks did overwhelm ; A lonely place, with pleafures dignifi'd." f

This "Poem" proves that she had true poetic feeling, and shows to what she could rise when she was willing to throw aside her musty folios and read the fresh book of nature.

" And Wisdom's self Oft seeks to sweet retired solitude. Where, with her best nurse Contemplation, She plumes her feathers, and lets grow her wings, That in the various bustle of resort, Were all-to ruffled, and sometimes impair'd." J


 * See page 370. f See page 377. X Milton's Comus, 375-So.

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