The News For Parrots ~ The First Book of American Verse Printed Abroad

facsimile from The Writings of Mrs. Anne Bradstreet, Frank Easton Hopkins

 






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from A History of American Literature, by Fred Lewis Pattee, 1896, 1908, 1909

1. Anne (dudley) Bradstreet (1612-1672).

(Works of Anne Bradstreet in Prose and Verse, edited by Ellis; Poems of Mrs. Anne Bradstreet, introduction by Norton, 1897; Anne Bradstreet and Her Time, by Campbell, 1891.)

Since the days of Sappho no poetess was ever more extravagantly praised by contemporaries than was Anne Bradstreet, the "Tenth Muse" of the Puritans of early New England. The daughter of Governor Thomas Dudley, she had accompanied her father into the forests of Massachusetts Bay with the earliest settlers of that province.

In 1650 there appeared in London, under the title The Tenth Muse Lately sprung up in America, the first book of American verse ever printed abroad:

"THE TENTH MUSE Lately sprung up in America. Severall Poems, compiled with great variety of Wit and Learning, full of delight. Wherein especially is contained a compleat discourse and description of the Four Elements, Constitutions, Ages of Man, Seasons of the Tear. Together with an Exact Epitome of the Four Monarchies, viz. The Assyrian, Persian, Grecian, Roman. Also a Dialogue between Old England and New, concerning the late troubles. With divers other pleasant and serious Poems. By a Gentlewoman in those parts."

The title is a startling one, from the poetical standpoint. To woo the Muse with such subjects seems hardly possible, and the poems are what we might well expect. Her numbers were seldom correct; she lacked the fine touch of the true poet, and her themes were such that not even genius could lift them into the realm of poesy, yet in spite of all this she deserves much praise, since hers was the hand that first beckoned the lyric muse to these shores.

Among a surprising mass of rubbish from her pen there is here and there to be found a true gem. In her Contemplations, written apparently on the banks of the Merrimac at the flood tide of the year, we find the first poetry of the American landscape:

"Sometime now past in the Autumnal tide,
When Phoebus wanted but one hour to bed,
The trees all nicely clad, yet void of pride,
Were gilded o'er by his rich golden head.

Their leaves and fruits seem'd painted, but was true
Of green, of red, of yellow, mixed hew:
Rapt were my sences at this delectable view."

The surroundings of this early poetess were anything but inspiring. She was lame and of delicate health throughout her life. The mother of eight children, she wrote all her poems amid the hurry and care of multifarious household duties.

From Anne Bradstreet has descended a sturdy literary progeny Holmes, Channing, R. H. Dana, Buckminster, and many other New England authors trace a lineal descent from this earliest singer of the new world.