To
sing of wars, of captains, and of kings,
Of cities founded, commonwealth
begun,
For my are too :
Or how
they all, or each
Let
poets and historians set these forth,
My shall not so their worth.
2
But when my wond'ring eyes and envious heart
do but read
o'er,
I do did not
Twixt him and me that ;
A
Bartas can do what a Bartas will
But simple I according to my
skill.
3
From schoolboy's tongue no we expect,
Nor yet a sweet from broken strings,
Nor
perfect beauty where's a main defect;
My foolish, broken, blemished
Muse so sings,
And this to mend, alas, no art is able,
"Cause made it so
4
Nor can I, like that fluent
Who
lisped at first, in future times speak plain.
By art he gladly found
what he did seek,
A full of his striving
pain.
Art can do much, but this most sure:
A admits
no cure.
5
I am to each
Who
says my hand a needle better fits,
A poet's pen all scorn I should
thus wrong,
For such they cast on female ;
If what I do
well, it won't advance,
They'll
say it's stol'n, or else it was by chance.
6
But sure the antique Greeks were far more mild
Else
of our sex, why they
And made ;
So 'mongst the rest they placed the arts divine;
But this weak
they will full soon untie,
7
Let Greeks be Greeks, and
Men
have and still
excel,
It is but vain unjustly to wage war;
Men can do
best, and .
Preeminence in all and each is yours;
Yet grant of
ours.
8
And oh ye high flown that soar the
skies,
And ever with your still catch your
praise,
If e'er you these lowly lines your eyes,
Give wreath, I ask
no ;
This mean and
unrefined ore of mine
Will make your glist'ring gold but more to
shine.
1650
Thou ill-form'd of my feeble
brain,
Who after birth did'st by my side remain,
Till
snatcht from thence by friends, less wise than true
Who thee abroad,
expos'd to publick view;
Made thee in rags, halting to th' press to
trudge,
Where errors were not lessened (all may judge)
At
thy return my blushing was not small,
My rambling brat (in print)
should mother call,
I cast thee by as one unfit for light,
Thy was so irksome in my
sight;
Yet being mine own, at length affection would
Thy
blemishes amend, if so I could:
I wash'd thy face, but more defects
I saw,
And rubbing off a spot, still made a flaw.
I
stretcht thy joints to make thee ,
Yet still thou
run'st more hobbling than is meet;
In better dress to trim thee was
my mind,
But nought save home-spun cloth, i' th' house I find.
In this array, 'mongst vulgars mayst thou roam
In critics hands,
beware thou dost not come;
And take thy way where yet thou art not
known,
If for thy father askt, say, thou hadst none:
And
for thy mother, ,
Which caus'd her thus to send thee out of door.
1678
"Anthropomorphism and
Apostrophe,Comparison and Conceit: Analysis of 'The Author to Her Book'" by
Jonah Knobler
Lines from "In Honor of That High and Mighty Princess"
...Now say, have women worth? or have they none?
Or had they
some, but with our Queen is 't gone?
Nay masculines, you have thus
taxed us long.
But she, though dead, will vindicate our wrong.
Let such as say our sex is void or reason
Know 'tis a slander
now but once was treason.
1650
More
Bradstreet Poems (study texts):
"A Letter to
Her Husband, Absent Upon Public Employment"
"To My Dear
and Loving Husband'
