The Poems of Mrs Anne Bradstreet Together with Her Prose Remains by Anne Bradstreet Part 2/2

The Poems of Mrs Anne Bradstreet Together with Her Prose Remains by Anne Bradstreet (1612 - 1672)
Genre(s): Single author

Read by: TriciaG, nighthawks, Owlivia, Brize C, Sam Maxwell, DylanEarl1986, czandra, jkspriggs, AlexisM, Larry Wilson, quintonreads, Denny, proboomer, Adrian Stephens, Stefan Von Blon, pattymarie, Ana Richardson, Alex in English

Parts:

Chapters:
00:00:00 - 22 - The Flesh and the Spirit
00:06:10 - 23 - The Vanity of All Wordly Things
00:10:22 - 24 - The Author to Her Book
00:12:34 - 25 - Upon a Fit of Sickness
00:14:48 - 26 - Upon Some Distemper of Body
00:16:21 - 27 - Before the Birth of One of Her Children
00:18:59 - 28 - To My Dear and Loving Husband
00:20:24 - 29 - A Letter to Her Husband
00:23:00 - 30 - Another
00:26:36 - 31 - Another
00:29:33 - 32 - In Reference to Her Children
00:35:00 - 33 - In Memory of Elizabeth Bradstreet
00:36:39 - 34 - In Memory of Anne Bradstreet
00:38:32 - 35 - On Simon Bradstreet
00:40:09 - 36 - To the Memory of Mercy Bradstreet
00:42:52 - 37 - A Funeral Elegy Upon Mrs Anne Bradstreet
00:50:17 - 38 - For My Dear Son Simon Bradstreet
00:52:48 - 39 - Meditations Divine and Moral
01:20:06 - 40 - To My Dear Children
01:30:03 - 41 - 'By Night, When Others Soundly Slept'
01:31:52 - 42 - For Deliverance from a Fever
01:34:03 - 43 - From Another Sore Fit
01:36:26 - 44 - Deliverance from a Fit of Fainting
01:38:04 - 45 - Meditations When My Soul Hath Been Refreshed
01:48:26 - 46 - Upon My Son Samuel His Going for England
01:51:58 - 47 - For the Restoration of My Dear Husband
01:54:01 - 48 - Upon My Daughter Hannah Wiggin
01:55:19 - 49 - On My Son's Return Out of England
01:57:47 - 50 - Upon My Husband His Going into England
02:00:43 - 51 - In My Solitary Hours
02:04:32 - 52 - For the Letters I Received From My Husband
02:05:59 - 53 - For My Husband's Safe Arrival
02:07:41 - 54 - 'In Silent Night, When Rest I Took'
02:11:17 - 55 - 'As Weary Pilgrim, Now at Rest'

In the year 1650...there was published, in London, a book of poems written by a gifted young woman of the New England wilderness, Anne Bradstreet by name. This book bore one of those fantastic and long-winded title-pages, at once a table of contents and a printer's puff, that the literary folk of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries greatly delighted in. It reads thus: 'The Tenth Muse lately sprung up in America; or, Several Poems, compiled with great variety of wit and learning, full of delight; wherein especially is contained a complete discourse and description of the four elements, constitutions, ages of man, seasons of the year; 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.'She was born in England, in 1612. In the year 1628, when she had reached the age of sixteen, she married the man in whose loving and grave companionship she passed the remainder of her life, Simon Bradstreet, nine years older than herself, of a good family in Suffolk, a graduate of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, educated to business by her own father, a man of Puritan faith and demeanor, God-fearing, and fearing no man. Two years later, the young people joined the great company of wealthy and cultivated Puritans who sailed away to New England, where, thenceforward, Simon Bradstreet steadily advanced in importance, and came to take a great part in matters of church and state, living out a long career there as colonial secretary, judge, legislator, governor, ambassador, and royal councillor, dying at last in great honor, at the great age of ninety-four, the white-haired and wise-tongued Nestor of the Puritan commonwealth.She was the laborious wife of a New England farmer, the mother of eight children, and herself from childhood of a delicate constitution. The most of her poems were produced between 1630 and 1642, that is, before she was thirty years old; and during these years, she had neither leisure, nor elegant surroundings, nor freedom from anxious thoughts, nor even abounding health. Somehow, during her busy life-time, she contrived to put upon record compositions numerous enough to fill a royal octavo volume of four hundred pages, — compositions which entice and reward our reading of them, two hundred years after she lived. - Summary by Moses Coit Tyler