Here I am with daughter Morgan this week on the Buzz Lightyear ride at Walt Disney World. Are we both intent on hitting those targets (and beating each other's score) or what?!
This week I got to spend cherished time with the two women Im closest to in life my mother, Nita Morgan (Hi, Mom!) and my daughter, Morgan. Morgan is home for spring break from college, and we travelled to Florida for my nieces wedding. (Left hubby and son here to keep the fort.)
While at my folks house, Morgan and I bunked together in the guestroom. It was cold and I dont mean just Oh, those Florida people think anything below 70 degrees is cold, I mean it really was nippy with wild winds while we were there. So we added a quilt made by my grandmother to the top of our cozy bed. Another generation, another family layer. My mothers mother died before Morgan was born, but they would have loved each other.
I wanted to find some appropriate poem to share today something the relationships of mothers and children. Anne Bradstreet sprang to mind.
You remember Anne (1612-1672).... She came over in the Arabella in 1630 with husband Simon and the Winthrop contingent. Shes intrigued me for years. Very well educated, and gasp! a writer. Yet unlike her friend Anne Hutchinson whose outspoken views got her banished, Anne Bradstreet managed to remain in the community, raising eight children and writing when she could. (Jeannine Atkins has a marvelous picture book about Anne Hutchinson, by the way.)
Bradstreet didnt seek publication, though her brother-in-law had her some of her poetry published (the story goes without her knowledge) in England in 1650, in a collection called The Tenth Muse, Lately Sprung Up in America (1650). The rest of her publications came posthumously.
She wrote of her family and her faith with sincere devotion and in the midst of the grueling challenges of those early years in the colonies, and personal health woes and trials as well.
Here are the opening lines of
In Reference to her Children
I had eight birds hatcht in one nest,
Four Cocks were there, and Hens the rest.
I nurst them up with pain and care,
No cost nor labour did I spare
Till at the last they felt their wing,
Mounted the Trees and learned to sing.
Chief of the Brood then took his flight
To Regions far and left me quite.
My mournful chirps I after send
Till he return, or I do end.
Leave not thy nest, thy Dame and Sire,
Fly back and sing amidst this Quire.
My second bird did take her flight
And with her mate flew out of sight.
Southward they both their course did bend,
And Seasons twain they there did spend,
Till after blown by Southern gales
They Norward steer'd with filled sails.
A prettier bird was no where seen,
Along the Beach, among the treen.
She continues with thoughts about each child.
And, toward the end:
When each of you shall in your nest
Among your young ones take your rest,
In chirping languages oft them tell
You had a Dame that lov'd you well,
Read the rest of the poem here. (And learn more about Anne Dudley Bradstreet here and here and here.)
While I admire Bradstreets devotion to family and her spiritual life, I also relish the feminist-friendly notions she let seep through in her writing more than 350 years ago, such as these lines from The Prologue:
"I am obnoxious to each carping tongue
Who says my hand a needle better fits,
A poet's pen all scorn I should thus wrong.
For such despite they cast on female wits:
If what I do prove well, it won't advance,
They'll say it's stol'n, or else it was by chance."
Pretty spunky for a Puritan woman, no? For more great poetry by female, as well as male, wits, sail on over to see Heidi at My Juicy Little Universe.
Comments
Hi, e - thanks for stopping by. Wonder how you and I would have fared in the 17th century? Hmmmmm....!
Jama, thanks. I'm glad you know Jeannine's book. Those illustrations by Michael Dooling are wonderful, too.
Hi, Joy! Ha ha - for a quick snap of the camera lens, I was a galactic hero! (Glad the universe doesn't depend upon my video-game coordination skills, though.) Thanks for always making me smile, and glad you liked the poem, too.
Among your young ones take your rest,
In chirping languages oft them tell
You had a Dame that lov'd you well,
Truly a message to pass from generation to generation. Thanks for the introduction to this poet, Robyn...I, too , am referencing Jeannine's wonderful book - such an interesting period of time.
Hi, Tara - I just love those lines. Had to include them, even though they come toward the end of the poem. And Jeannine's book is one of my favorites for young readers about that time period.
And yes, those are some spunky words for a Puritan woman! You go, Girl!
Heidi, thanks for hosting this week. Don't you just love Anne Bradstreet?! And thanks for the comments - alas, I'm always going in lots of directions at once... ;0)
Thanks, Mary Lee! Glad you like the new look and the old but timely poem.