In Memory of my Dear Grandchild Anne Bradstreet, who deceased June 20, 1669, being Three Years and Seven Months Old

An Electronic Edition · Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672)

Original Source: The Works of Anne Bradstreet in Prose and Verse. Edited by John Harvard Ellis. (Charlestown: A. E. Cutter, 1867)

Copyright 2003. This text is freely available provided the text is distributed with the header information provided.

Full Colophon Information

In memory of my
dear grand-child Anne Bradstreet. Who deceased June
20. 1669. being three years and seven Moneths
old.

WIth troubled heart & trembling hand I
write, 
The Heavens have chang’d to sorrow my delight. 
How oft with disappointment have I met, 
When I on fading things my hopes have set? 
Experience might ‘fore this have made me wise,5.
To value things according to their price: 
Was ever stable joy yet found below? 
Or perfect bliss without mixture of woe. 
I knew she was but as a withering flour, 
That’s here to day, perhaps gone in an hour;10.
Like as a bubble, or the brittle glass, 
Or like a shadow turning as it was. 
More fool then I to look on that was lent, 
As if mine own, when thus impermanent. 
Farewel dear child, thou ne’re shall come to me,15.
But yet a while, and I shall go to thee; 
Mean time my throbbing heart’s chear’d up with this 
Thou with thy Savior art in endless bliss. 

Full Colophon Information

Genre: Poetry
Subjects: Death
Period: 1650-1700
Location: New England
Format: verse

This text was first published in 1678 in Several Poems.

This electronic text was prepared from and proofed against The Works of Anne Bradstreet in Prose and Verse. Edited by John Harvard Ellis. (Charlestown: A. E. Cutter, 1867). All preliminaries and notes have been omitted except those for which the author is responsible and those in which editorial notes indicate significant textual variations. All editorial notes have been omitted except for those which indicate significant textual variations. Line and paragraph numbers contained in the source text have been retained. In cases where the source text displays no numbers, numbers are automatically generated. In the header, personal names have been regularized according to the Library of Congress authority files as "Last Name, First Name" for the REG attribute and "First Name Last Name" for the element value. Names have not been regularized in the body of the text.