In Memory of My Dear Grandchild Elizabeth Bradstreet
An Anne Bradstreet Poem
In this installment of Anne Bradstreet's Family Poetry series, we will be looking at some mourning verses penned for her granddaughter. You can see all previous posts in this series here.
I have heard from older Christian men that while there is great joy to becoming a parent, there is a magnified joy to becoming a grandparent, which comes from seeing the budding fulfillment of patient godly labor. To those who love the Lord and obey His Covenant, children are a great blessing. I infer that it is an even greater blessing to see your children get married and experience the same joy of parenthood. Common grace might teach me this, but so does scripture when it repeatedly invokes blessings upon children and children's children.
The magnitude of this blessing serves as the context for Anne Bradstreet's grief in this poem to her since passed grandchild, Elizabeth. Anne lovingly remembers Elizabeth and given that Elizabeth passed at 18 months, we can imagine that Anne would have spent many hours singing to her, playing with her, and reciting poetry to her. How often did Anne experience the sweet joy of her granddaughter’s innocent laughter? How often did Anne cradle her in her arms, thanking God for the gift that he had given. Elizabeth was a blessing to the Bradstreet family which Anne heartily confesses, likely for the hundredth time: My Hearts Content, Apple of my Eye, Fair Flower.
The Lord saw it fit to call Elizabeth back to Himself very soon after her birth. In these few verses Anne, stricken with sorrow, does not question God's justice, rather reminds herself of God's sovereignty and comforts herself with the reality that her granddaughter is ultimately in a state far more blessed that Anne's.
She ends the poem with a thoughtful meditation on the natural course of decay we experience. Old trees rot, ripe fruit falls from the tree, crops are harvested at maturity, budding flowers wither. Analogous to human life, some of these scenes seem more fitting to our expectations of the course of life, but all flesh, whether brought to maturity or plucked in its budding phase, is like grass and is controlled by the Makers hand. Deo Gratias.
Below is the poem reproduced in full.
In Memory of My Dear Grandchild Elizabeth Bradstreet, Who Deceased August, 1665 Being a Year and a Half Old
Farewell dear babe, my heart’s too much content,
Farewell sweet babe, the pleasure of mine eye,
Farewell fair flower that for a space was lent,
Then taken away unto eternity.
Blest babe why should I once bewail thy fate,
Or sigh the days so soon were terminate;
Sith thou art settled in an everlasting state.
By nature trees do rot when they are grown.
And plums and apples thoroughly ripe do fall,
And corn and grass are in their season mown,
And time brings down what is both strong and tall.
But plants new set to be eradicate,
And buds new blown, to have so short a date,
Is by His hand alone that guides nature and fate.
