New Englands Crisis
The source for this document is http://name.umdl.umich.edu/N00166.0001.001
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The source of this document is the Early English Books Online (EEBO-TCP) website. Those books were transcribed in a character for character manner and can be very cumbersome to read since there was no standard spelling during that time. Many spelling variations such as "unlesse", "vnlesse", and "vnles" regularly appear.
This project was conceived to clean up those books as much as possible and make them more accessible to the interested reader, leading to the creation of a massive list of variant spellings and their corrections. This was used to clean up the text, but is of course only as complete as the list itself. Because of the nature of the original transcription, some words have missing characters or places where the original language (e.g., Greek) was not transcribed. This effort does not change that. Be aware that the original transcription can also be faulty and in some cases entire sentences may be missing.
Although this is no substitute for a properly compared, proofed, and scholarly edition, I believe that the result is a document which is far more accessible, particularly for searching for terms using standard spelling. The document has been cleaned and presented in what I hope is a pleasing and useful format for the vast majority of Christian brothers and sisters who just want access to read these spiritually nourishing works.
However, a word of warning: The Puritans were a very diverse group of people and their age was characterized with godliness, but also much upheaval, disputation and strife. They disagreed on many doctrines and some of these works contain less orthodox or Scriptural views than others. The reader is strongly advised to read with discernment, particularly if it is unknown whether author is trustworthy.
This project took a huge amount of time and skill to bring to fruition. I would particularly like to thank David Jonescue for the initial list of Puritans he found on EEBO and the concept behind this project as well as the continuous, unceasing efforts toward seeing this complete. Without his labor, this would not be available. Alex Sarrouf was invaluable in providing the initial list of over 7,000 spelling variations he had identified and corrected, as well as continuing to review more than 16,000 additions to that list for any typos.
Logan West
(with David Jonescue and Alex Sarrouf)
www.puritansearch.org
New England's Crisis Or a Brief Narrative, Of NEW-ENGLANDS Lamentable Estate at present, compared with the former (but few) years of Prosperity.
Occasioned by many unheard of Cruel+tyes practiced upon the Persons and Estates of its united Colonyes, without respect of Sex, Age or Quality of Persons, by the Barbarous Heathen thereof.
Poetically Described.
By a Well wisher to his Country.
BOSTON, Printed and sold by John Foster, over against the Sign of the Dove. 1676.
TO THE READER.
Courteous Reader,
I never thought this Babe of my weak Fantasy worthy of an Imprimatur; but being an Abortive, it was begged in these perplexing Times to be cherished by the Charity of others. If its Lineaments please not the Reader better than the Writer, I shall be glad to see it pressed to death: but if it displease not many and satisfy any, its to me a glorious Reward, who am more willing than able to any Service to my Country and Friend,
Farewell
New England's Crisis
THE PROLOGUE.
THe times wherein old
Po
•
pion
was a Saint,
When men far'd hardly yet without complaint
On vilest
Cates,
the dainty
Indian Maize
Was eat with
Clamp-shells
out of wooden Trayes
Under thatched
Hutts
without the cry of
Rent,
And the best
Sawce
to every Dish,
Content.
When Flesh was food, & hairy skins made coats,
And men as well as birds had chirping Notes.
When Cimnels were accounted noble blood
Among the tribes of common herbage food.
Of
Ceres
bounty formed was many a knack
Enough to fill
poor Robins Almanac.
These golden times (too fortunate to hold)
Were quickly sinned away for love of gold.
Twas then among the bushes, not the street
If one in place did an inferior meet,
Good morrow Brother, is there ought you want?
Take freely of me, what I have you ha'nt.
Plain
Tom
and
Dick
would pass as currant now,
As ever since
Your Servant Sir
and bow.
Deep-skirted doublets,
puritanick
capes
Which now would render men like upright Apes,
Was comlier wear our wiser Fathers thought
That the cast fashions from all
Europe
brought.
Twas in those days an honest
Grace
would hold
Till an hot puddin grew at heart a cold.
And men had better stomachs to religion
Than
〈◊〉
to capon, turkey-cock or pigeon.
When honest Sisters met to pray not prate
About their own and not their neighbors state.
During
Plain Dealings
Reign, that worthy Stud
Of the ancient planters race before the flood
These times were good, Merchants cared not a rush
For other fare than
Jonakin and Mush.
Although men far'd and lodged very hard
Yet Innocence was better than a Guard.
T was long before spiders & worms had drawn
Their dungy webs or hid with cheating Lawne
New-England's
beautyes, which still seemed to me
Illustrious in their own simplicity.
T was ere the neighbouring
Virgin-land
had broke
The Hogsheads of her worse than hellish smoke.
T was ere the Islands sent their Presents in,
Which but to use was counted next to sin.
T was ere a
Barge
had made so rich a freight
As
Chocholatte,
dust-gold and bitts of eight.
Ere wines from
France
and
Moscovadoe
too
Without the which the drink will scarcely do,
From western Isles, ere fruits and delicacies,
Did rot maids teeth & spoil their hansome faces.
Or ere these times did chance the noise of war
Was from our towns and hearts removed far.
No Bugbear Comets in the crystal air
To drive our Christian Planters to despair.
No sooner pagan malice peeped forth
But Valour snib'd it▪ then were men of worth
Who by their prayers slew thousands Angel like,
Their weapons are unseen with which they strike.
Then had the Churches rest, as yet the coals
Were covered up in most contentious souls.
Freeness in Judgment, union in affection,
Dear love, sound truth they were our grand protection
These were the twins which in our Councils sat,
These gave prognostics of our future fate,
If these be longer lived our hopes increase,
These wars will usher in a longer peace:
But if
New-England's
love die in its youth
The grave will open next for blessed Truth.
This
Theame
is out of date, the peaceful hours
When Castles needed not but pleasant bowers.
Not ink, but blood and tears now serve the turn
To draw the figure of
New-England's
Urne.
New England's▪
hour of passion is at hand,
No power except Divine can it withstand;
Scarce hath her glass of fifty years run out,
But her old prosperous Steeds turn heads about,
Tracking themselves back to their poor beginnings,
To fear and fare upon their fruits of sinnings:
So that the mirror of the Christian world
Lyes burnt to heaps in part, her Streamers furl'd
Grief reigns, joys flee and dismal fears surprise,
Not dastard spirits only but the wife.
Thus have the fairest hopes deceived the eye
Of the big swoln Expectant standing by.
Thus the proud Ship after a little turn
Sinks into
Neptunes
arms to find its Urn.
Thus hath the heir to many thousands born
Been in an instant from the mother torn.
Even thus thine infant cheeks begin to pale,
And thy supporters through great losses fail▪
This is the
Prologue
to thy future woe,
The
Epilogue
no mortal yet can know.
New England's Crisis.
IN seventy five the
Critick
of our years
Commenc'd our war with
Phillip
and his peers.
Whither the sun in
Leo
had inspired
A feav'rish heat, and
Pagan
spirits fired?
Whither some Romish Agent hatched the plot?
Or whither they themselves? appeareth not.
Whither our infant thrivings did invite?
Or whither to our lands pretended right?
Is hard to say; but
Indian spirits
need
No grounds but lust to make a Christian bleed.
And here methinks I see this greazy
Lout
With all his pagan slaves coil'd round about,
Assuming all the majesty his throne
Of rotten stump, or of the rugged stone
Could yield; casting some bacon rine-like looks,
Enough to fright a Student from his books,
Thus treat his peers, & next to them his Commons,
Kennel'd together all without a summons.
My friends, our Fathers were not half so wise
As we ourselves who see with younger eyes.
They sel our land to english man who teach
Our nation all so fast to pray and preach:
Of all our country they enjoy the best,
And quickly they intend to have the rest▪
This no wunnegin, so big matchit law,
Which our old fathers fathers never saw.
These english make and we must keep them too,
Which is too hard for them or us to do,
We drink we so big whipt, but english they
Go sneep, no more, or else a little pay.
Me meddle Squaw me hanged, our fathers kept
What Sqaws they would whither they wakt or slept.
Now if you'le fight I will get you english coats,
And wine to drink out of their Captains throats.
The richest merchants houses shall be ours,
We'l lie no more on matts or dwell in bowers
We'l have their silken wives take they our Squaws,
They shall be whipt by virtue of our laws.
If ere we strike tis now before they swell
To greater swarms then we know how to quell.
This my resolve, let neighbouring
Sachems
know,
And everyone that hath club, gun or bow.
This was assented to, and for a close
He strokt his smutty beard and cursed his foes.
This counsel lightning like their tribes invade,
And something like a muster's quickly made,
A ragged regiment, a naked swarm,
Whome hopes of booty doth with courage arm,
Set forth with bloody hearts, the first they meet
Of men or beasts they butcher at their feet.
They round our skirts, they pare, they fleece they kill,
And to our bordering towns do what they will.
Poor Hovills (better far then
Caesar's
court
In the experience of the meaner sort)
Receive from them their doom next execution,
By flames reduced to horror and confusion:
Here might be seen the smoking funeral piles
Of wildred towns pitched distant many miles
Here might be seen the infant from the
〈◊〉
Snatcht by a pagin hand to lasting rest:
The mother
Rachel
-like shrieks out my child
She wrings her hands and raves as she were wild.
The brutish wolves suppress her anxious moan
By crueltyes more deadly of her own.
Will she or nill the chastest turtle must
Taste of the pangs of their unbridled lust.
From farms to farms, from towns to towns they post,
They strip, they bind, they ravish, flea and roast.
The beasts which wont their masters crib to know,
Over the ashes of their shelters low.
What the inexorable flames do spare
More cruel
Heathen
lug away for fare.
These tidings ebbing from the outward parts
Makes trades▪ men cast aside their wonted Arts
And study arms: the craving merchants plot
Not to augment but keep what they have got.
And every soul which hath but common sense
Thinks it the time to make a just defense.
Alarums
everywhere resound in streets,
From
West
sad tidings with the
Eastern
meets.
Our common fathers in their Councils close
A martial treaty with the pagan foes,
All answers center here that fire and sword
Must make their
Sachem
universal Lord.
This arms the english with a resolution
To give the vaporing
Scab
a retribution.
Heavens they consult by prayer, the best design
A furious foe to quel or undermine.
RESOLV'D
that from the
Massachusetts
bands
Be pressed on service some
Herculean
hands
And certainly he well deserved a jerke
That slipped the Collar from so good a work.
Some Volunteers, some by compulsion go
To range the hideous forest for a foe.
The tender Mother now's all bowels grown,
Clings to her son as if they'd melt in one.
Wives clasp about their husbands as the vine
Huggs the fair elm, while tears burst out like wine.
The new-sprung love in many a virgin heart
Swels to a mountain when the lovers part.
Nephews and kindred turn all springs of tears,
Their hearts are so surprised with panic fears.
But doleful shrieks of captives summon forth
Our walking castles, men of noted worth,
Made all of life, each Captain was a
Ma
r
s,
His name too strong to staud on waterish verse▪
Due praise I leave to some poetick hand
Whose pen and wits are better at command.
Methinks I see the
Trojan-horse
burst ope,
And such rush forth as might with giants cope:
These first the natives treachery felt, too fierce
For any but eye-witness to rehearse.
Yet sundry times in places where they came
Upon the Indian skins they carv'd their name.
The trees stood Sentinels and bullets flew
From every bush (a shelter for their crew)
Hence came our wounds and deaths from every side
While skulking enemies squat undiscri'd,
That every stump shot like a musketeer,
And bows with arrows every tree did bear
The swamps were Courts of Guard, thither retired
The straggling blew-coats when their guns were fired,
In dark Meanders, and these winding groves,
Where Bears & panthers with their Monarch moves
These far more cruel slily hidden lay,
Expecting english men to move that way.
One party lets them ip, the other greets
Them with the next thing to their winding-sheets;
Most fall, the rest thus startled back return,
And from their by past foes receive an urn.
Here fell a Captain, to be named with tears,
Who for his Courage left not many peers,
With many more who scarce a number left
To tell how treacherously they were bereft.
This flusht the pagan courage, now they think
The victory theirs, not lacking meat or drink.
The ranging wolves find here and there a prey,
And having filed their paunch they run away
By their Hosts light, the thanks which they return
Is to lead Captives and their taverns burn.
Many whose thrift had stored for after use
Sustain their wicked plunder and abuse.
Poor peeple spying an unwonted light,
Fearing a Martyrdom, in sudden fright
Leap to the door to fly, but all in vain,
They are surrounded with a pagan train;
Their first salute is death, which if they shun
Some are condemned the Gauntelet to run;
Death would a mercy prove to such as those
Who feel the rigor of such hellish foes.
Posts daily on their
Pegasean
Steeds
Bring sad reports of worse then
Nero's
deeds,
Such brutish Murthers as would paper stain
Not to be heard in a Domitians Reign.
The field which nature hid is common laid,
And Mothers bodies ripped for lack of aid.
The secret Cabinets which nature meant
To hide her master piece is open rent,
The half formd Infant there receives a death
Before it sees the light or draws its breath,
Many hot welcomes from the natives arms
Hid in their sculking holes many alarms
Our brethren had, and weary weary trants,
Sometimes in melting heats and pinching wants:
Sometimes the clouds with sympathizing tears
Ready to burst discharged about their ears:
Sometimes on craggy hills, anon in bogs
And miry swamps better befitting hogs,
And after tedious Marches little boast
Is to he heard of stewd or bakt or roast,
Their beds are hurdles, open house they keep
Through shady boughs the stars upon them peep,
Their crystal drink drawn from the mothers breal
Disposes not to mirth but sleep and rest.
Thus many days and weeks, some months run out
To find and quell the vagabonding rout,
Who like enchanted Castles fair appear,
But all is vanished if you come but near,
Just so we might the
Pagan
Archers track
With towns and merchandize upon their back;
And thousands in the
South
who settled down
To all the points and winds are quickly blown.
At many meetings of their fleeting crew▪
From whom like hail arrows and bullets flow:
The
English
courage with whole swarms dispute,
Hundreds they hack in pieces in pursuit.
Sed hand impune,
English sides do feel
As well as tawny skins the lead and steel
And some such gallant Sparks by bullets fell,
As might have cursed the powder back to Hell:
Had only Swords these skirmishes decided
All
Pagan Sculls
had been long since divided.
The lingering war out-lives the Summer sun,
Who hence departs hoping it might be done,
Ere his return at
Spring
but ah he'l find
The Sword still drawn, men of unchanged mind.
Cold winter now nibbles at hands and toes
And shrewdly pinches both our friends and foes.
Fierce
Boreas
whips the
Pagan
tribe together
Advising them to fit for foes and weather:
The axe which late had tasted Christian blood
Now sets its steely teeth to feast on wood.
The forests suffer now, by weight constrein'd
To kiss the earth with soldiers lately brained.
The lofty oakes and ash do wag the head
To see so many of their neighbors dead;
Their fallen carcasses are carried thence
To stand our enemies in their defense.
Their Myrmidons enclosed with clefts of trees
Are busy like the ants or nimble bees:
And first they limber poles fix in the ground,
In figure of the heavens convex: all round
They draw their arras-matts and skins of beasts,
And under these the Elves do make their nests.
Rome
took more time to grow then twice six hours,
But half that time will serve for indian bowers.
A Citty shall be reared in one days space
As shall an hundred english men out-face.
Canonicus
precincts there swarms unite,
Rather to keep a winter guard then fight.
A dern and dismal swamp some Scout had found
Whose bosom was a spot of rising ground
Hedg'd up with mighty oakes, maples and ashes,
Nurst up with springs, quick bogs & miry plashes
A place which nature coin'd on very nonce
For tygers not for men to be a sconce.
T was here these Monsters shape and faced like men
Took up there Rendezvouz and
〈◊〉
den,
Deeming the depth of snow, hail, frost and ice
Would make our Infantry more tame and wise
Then by by forsaking beds and loving wives,
Meerly for indian skins to hazard lives:
These hopes had something calm'd the boiling passion
Of this incorrigible warlike nation.
During this short
Parenthesis
of peace
Our forces found, but left him not at case.
Here english valor most illustrious shone▪
Finding their numbers ten times ten to one.
A shower of leaden hail our captains feel
Which made the bravest blades among us reel.
Like to some ant▪ hill neatly spurn'd abroad,
Where each takes heels and bears away his load:
Instead of place and jewels▪ indian trayes
With baskets up they snatch and rust their ways.
Sundry the flames arrest and some the blade,
By bullets heaps on heaps of Indians laid.
The Flames like lightening in their narrow streets
Dart in the face of everyone it meets.
Here might be heard an hideous indian'cry,
Of wounded ones who in the Wigwams fry.
Had we been
Cannibals
here might we feast
On brave
Westphalia
gammons ready dressed.
The tauny hue is Ethiopic made
Of such on whom
Vulcan
his clutches laid.
There fate was sudden, our advantage great
To give them once for all a grand defeat;
But tedious travel had so crampt our toes
It was too hard a task to chase the foes.
Distinctness in the numbers of the slain,
Or the account of Pagans which remain
Are both uncertain, losses of our own
Are too too sadly felt, too sadly known.
War digs a common grave for friends and foes,
Captains in with the common soldier throws.
Six of our Leaders in the first assault
Craye readmission to their Mothers Vault
Who had they fell in ancient
Homers
days
Had been enrol'd with
Hecatombs
of praise.
As clouds dispersed, the natives troops divide,
And like the streams along the thickets glide.
Some breathing time we had, & short God knows
But new alarums from recruited foes
Bounce at our ears, the mounting clouds of smoke
From martyred towns the heavens for aid invoke:
Churches, barns, houses with most ponderous things
Made volatile fly ore the land with wings.
Hundreds of cattle now they sacrifice
For aiery spirits up to gormandize;
And to the
Molech
of their hellish guts,
Which craves the flesh in gross, their ale in butts.
Lancaster, Medfield, Mendon
wildred
Groton,
With many Villages by me not thought on
Dy in their youth by fire that useful foe,
Which this grand cheer the world will over flow.
The wandering Priest to everyone he meets
Preaches his Churches funeral in the streets.
Sheep from their fold are frighted, Keepers too
Put to their trumps not knowing what to do.
This monster War hath hatched a beauteous dove
In dogged hearts, of most unfeigned love,
Fraternal love the I very of a Saint
Being come in fashion though by sad constraint,
Which if it thrive and prosper with us long
Will make
New-England
forty thousand strong.
But off the Table hand, let this suffice
As the abridgment of our miseries.
If Mildew,
〈◊〉
, Sword, and fired Towns,
If Slaughter, Captivating, Deaths and wounds,
If daily whippings once reform our ways,
These all will Issue in our Fathers Praise;
If otherwise, the sword must never rest
Till all
New-England's
Glory it divest.
A Supplement.
WHat means this silence of
Harvardine
quils
While
Mars
triumphant thunders on our hills.
Have pagan priests their Eloquence confined
To no man's use but the mysterious mind?
Have Pawaws charmed that art which was so rife
To crouch to every Don that lost his life?
But now whole towns and Churches fire and dy
Without the pity of an
Elegy.
Nay rather should my quils were they all swords
Wear to the hilts in some lamenting words.
I dare not style them poetry but truth,
The dwingling products of my crazy youth.
If these essays shall raise some quainter pens
Twil to the Writer make a rich amends.
Marlburyes Fate
When
London's
fatal bills were blown abroad
And few but Specters traveled on the road,
Not towns but men in the black bill enrol'd
Were in
Gazetts
by
Typographers
sold:
But our
Gazetts
without
Errataes
must
Report the plague of towns reduct to dust:
And fevers formerly to tenants sent
Arrest the timbers of the tenement.
Ere the late ruins of old
Groton's
cold,
Of
Marlbury'
s peracute disease we are told.
The feet of such who neighbouring dwellings
〈◊〉
Unto her ashes, not her doors returned.
And what remaind of tears as yet unspent
Are to its final gasps a tribute lent.
If painter overtrack my pen let him
An olive color mix, these elves to trim;
Of such an hue let many thousand thieves
Be drawn like Scare-crows clad with oaken leaves,
Exhausted of their verdant life and blown
From place to place without an home to own.
Draw Devils like themselves, upon their cheeks
The banks for grease and mud, a place for leeks.
Whose locks
Medusaes
snakes, do ropes resemble,
And ghostly looks would make
Achilles
tremble.
Limm them besmear'd with Christian Blood & oil
With fat out of white human bodies boiled.
Draw them with clubs like maules & full of stains,
Like
Vulcans
anvilling
New-England's
brains▪
Let round be gloomy forests with crac'd rocks
Where like to castles they may hide their flocks,
Till opportunity their cautious friend
Shall jogge them fiery worship to attend.
Shew them like serpents in an avious path
Seeking to sow the fire-brands of their wrath.
Most like Aeneas in his cloak of mist,
Who undiscover'd move where ere they list
Cupid
they tell us hath too sorts of darts.
One sharp and one obtuse, one causing wounds,
One piercing deep the other dull rebounds,
But we feel none but such as drill our hearts.
From Indian sheaves which to their shoulders cling,
Upon the word they quickly feel the string
Let earth be made a screen to hide our woe
From Heavens Monarch and his Ladies too;
And least our Jealousy think they partake,
For the red stage with clouds a curtain make.
Let dogs be gag'd and every quickening sound
Be charmed to silence, here and there all round
The town to suffer, from a thousand holes
Let crawl these fiends with brands and fired poles,
Paint here the house & there there the barn on fire,
With holocausts ascending in a spire.
Here granaries, yonder the Churhes smoke
Which vengeance on the actors doth invoke.
Let
Morpheus
with his leaden keys have bound
In feather-beds some, some upon the ground,
That none may burst his drowfie shackles till
The brutish pagans have obtained their will,
And
Vulcan
files them off then
Zeuxis
paint
The frenzy glances of of the sinking saint.
Draw there the Pastor for his bible crying,
The soldier for his sword, The Glutton frying
With streams of glory-fat, the thin-jaw'd Miler
Oh had I given this I had been wiser.
Let here the Mother seem a statue turned
At the sad object of her bowels burned.
Let the unstable weakling in belief
Be mounting
Ashurs
horses for relief.
Let the half Convert seem suspended twixt
The dens of darkness, and the Planets fixed,
Ready to quit his hold, and yet hold fast
By the great
Atlas
of the Heavens vast.
Paint Papists mutterring ore their apish beads
whom the blind follow while the blind man leads,
Let
Ataxy
be mounted on a throne
Imposing her Commands on everyone,
A many-headed monster without eyes
To see the ways which wont to make men wise.
Give her a thousands tongues with wings and hands▪
To be ubiquitary in Commands,
But let the concave of her skull appear
Clean washed and empty quite of all but fear,
One she bids flee, another stay, a third
She bids betake him to his rusty sword,
This to his treasure, the other to his knees,
Some counsels she to fry and some to freeze,
These to the garrison, those to the road,
Some to run empty, some to take their load:
Thus while confusion most men's hearts divide
Fire doth their small exchecquer soon decide.
Thus all things seeming ope or secret foes,
An Infant may grow old before a close,
But yet my hopes abide in perfect strength.
The Town called Providence Its Fate.
Why muse we thus to see the wheels run cross
Since
Providence
itself sustains a loss:
And yet should
Providence
forget to watch
I fear the enemy would all dispatch;
Celestial lights would soon forget their line,
The wandering planets would forget to shine,
The stars run all out of their common spheres,
And quickly fall together by the ears:
Kingdoms would jostles out their Kings and set
The poor Mechanic up whom next they met,
Or rather would whole kingdoms with the world
Into a
Chaos
their first egg be hurled.
Ther's none this Providence of the Most High
Who can survive and write its Elegy:
But of a solitary town I write,
A place of darkness yet receiving light
From pagan hands, a miscellanious nest
Of errors Hectors, where they sought a rest
Out of the reach of Laws but not of God,
Since they have felt the smart of common rod.
T was much I thought they did escape so long,
Who Gospel truth so manifestly wrong:
For one
Lots
sake perhaps, or else I think
Justice did at greatest offenders wink
But now the shott is paid, I hope the dross
Will be cashiered in this common loss.
Houses with substance feel uplifting wings,
The earth remains, the last of human things:
But know the dismal day draws near wherein
The fire shall earth if self dissolve and sin.
Seaconk Plain Engagement.
On our
Pharsalian Plaines,
comprizing space
For
Casars
host brave
Pompey
to outface,
An handful of our men are walled round
With Indian swarms; anon their pieces sound
A
Madrigal
like heav ns artilery
Lightning and thunderbolts their bullets fly.
Her's hosts to handfulls, of a few they leave
Fewer to tell how many they bereave.
Fool-hardy fortitude it had been sure
Fierce storms of shot and arrows to endure
Without all hopes of some requital to
So numerous and pestilent a foe.
Some musing a retreat and thence to run,
Have in an instant all their business done,
They sink and all their sorrows ponderous weight
Down at their feet they cast and tumble straight.
Such who outliv'd the fate of others fly
Into the Irish bogs of misery.
Such who might die like men like beasts do range
Uncertain whither for a better change,
These Natives hunt and chase with currish mind,
And plague with crueltyes such as they find.
When shall this shower of Blond be over? When?
Quickly we pray oh Lord! say thou Amen.
Seaconk or Rehoboths Fate.
I once conjectur'd that those tygers hard
To reverend
Newmans
bones would have regard,
But were all
SAINTS
they met twere all one case,
They have no rev'rence to an Angels face:
But where they fix their griping lions paws
They rend without remorse or heed to laws.
Rehoboth
here in common english, Rest
They ransack,
Newmans
Relicts to molest.
Here all the town is made a public stage
Whereon these
Nimrods
act their monstrous rage.
All crueltyes which paper stained before
Are acted to the life here ore and ore.
Chelmsfords Fate.
Ere famous
Winthrops
bones are laid to rest
The pagans
Chelmsford
with sad flames arrest,
Making an artificial day of night
By that plantations formidable light.
Here's midnight shrieks and soul-amazing moans,
Enough to melt the very marble stones:
Fire-brands and bullets, darts and deaths and wounds
Confusive outcries everywhere resounds:
The natives shooting with the mixed cries,
With all the crueltyes the foes devise.
Might fill a volume, but I leave a space
For mercies still successive in there place
Not doubting but the foes have done their worst,
And shall by heaven suddenly be cursed.
Let this dear Lord the sad Conclusion be
O! poor
New-England's
dismal tragedy.
Let not the glory of thy former work
Blasphemed be by pagan Jew or Turk:
But in its funeral ashes write thy Name
So fair all Nations may expound the same:
Out of her ashes let a Phoenix rise
That may outshine the first and be more wise.
B. Thompson.
ON A FORTIFICATION At Boston begun by Women. Dux Foemina Facti.
A Grand attempt some Amazonian Dames
Contrive whereby to glorify their names,
A Ruff for
Boston
Neck of mud and turfe,
Reaching from side to side from surfe to surfe,
Their nimble hands spin up like Christmas pyes,
Their pastry by degrees on high doth rise.
The wheel at home counts it an holiday,
Since while the Mistress worketh it may play.
A tribe of female hands, but manly hearts
Forsake at home their pasty-crust and tarts.
To knead the dirt, the samplers down they hurl,
Their undulating silks they closely furle.
The pick-axe one as a Commandress holds,
While toother at her awkness gently scolds.
One puffs and sweats, the other mutters why
Cant you promove your work so fast as I?
Some dig, some delve, and others hands do feel
The little waggons weight with single wheel.
And least some fainting fits the weak surprise,
They want no sack nor cakes, they are more wise.
These brave essays draw forth Male stronger hands
More like to Dawbers then to Martial bands:
These do the work, and sturdy bulwarks raise,
But the beginners well deserve the praise.
FINIS.