Then wonder not if I no better sped,
Since I the Muses thus have injured.
I pensive for my fault, sate down, and then
Errata through their leave, threw me my pen,
My Poem to conclude, two lines they deign
Which writ, she bad return't to them again;
So Sidneys fame I leave to Englands Rolls,
His bones do lie interr'd in stately Pauls.
HIS EPITAPH.
Here lies in fame under this stone,
Philip and Alexander both in one;
Heir to the Muses, the Son of Mars in Truth,
Learning, Valour, Wisdome, all in virtuous youth,
His praise is much, this shall suffice my pen,
That Sidney dy'd 'mong most renown'd of men.
With Du Bartas, there is no hesitation or qualification. Steeped in the spirit of his verse, she was unconscious how far he had moulded both thought and expression, yet sufficiently aware of his influence to feel it necessary to assert at many points her freedom from it. But, as we have already seen, he was the Puritan poet, and affected every rhymester of the time, to a degree which it required generations to shake off. In New England, however, even he, in time came to rank as light-minded, and the last shadow of poetry fled before the metrical horrors of the Bay Psalm Book, which must have lent a terror to rhyme, that one could wish might be transferred to the present day. The elegy on Du Bartas is all the proof needed to establish Anne Bradstreet as one of his most loyal followers, and in spite of all protest to the contrary such she was and will remain.
