Trent and Wells, eds. Colonial Prose and Poetry. 1901.
Vol. II. The Beginnings of Americanism: 1650–1710
Verses from the Magnalia
COTTON MATHER was no poet, but like many of his quaint predecessors of the seventeenth century he thought it added dignity to his pages to insert poetical tributes to the distinguished men about whom he wrote. Some of these elegies and epitaphs were written by himself in the fantastic style of two generations before. Others, such as the lines on John Cotton by Benjamin Woodbridge, given in our first volume, were gathered from other sources. We here select some of Mather’s own lines, some contributed by the Rev. Nicholas Noyes (1647–1717), pastor at Salem, the most fantastic of all our poets and an inveterate punster, an epitaph by the “ingenious merchant,” Mr. Samuel Bache, and a few verses by a certain Benjamin Thompson (1642–1714), who has the credit of being our first native born poet, of whom, however, very little is known. His New England’s Crisis, which is supposed to be an epic of King Philip’s War, seems to have been preserved only in selections, but our specimen of Thompson’s verse will hardly cause great regrets for the fate of his magum opus.
“A Prefatory Poem, on That Excellent Book, Entituled Magnalia Christi Americana; Written by the Rev. Mr. Cotton Mather, Pastor of a Church at Boston, New England.”
By Nicholas Noyes.
To the Candid Reader.
STRUCK with huge love, of what to be possest,
I much despond, good reader, in the quest;
Yet help me, if at length it may be said,
Who first the chambers of the south display’d?
Inform me, whence the tawny people came?
Who was their father, Japhet, Shem, or Cham?
And how they straddled to th’ Antipodes,
To look another world beyond the seas?
And when, and why, and where they last broke ground,
What risks they ran, where they first anchoring found?
Tell me their patriarchs, prophets, priests, and kings,
Religion, manners, monumental things:
What charters had they? What immunities?
What altars, temples, cities, colonies,
Did they erect? Who were their public spirits?
Where may we find the records of their merits?
What instances, what glorious displays
Of heav’n’s high hand, commenced in their days?
These things in black oblivion covered o’er,
(As they’d ne’er been) lie with a thousand more,
A vexing thought, that makes me scarce forbear,
To stamp, and wring my hands, and pluck my hair,
To think, what blessed ignorance hath done,
What fine threads learning’s enemies have spun,
How well books, schools, and college may be spared,
So men with beasts may fitly be compared!
Yes, how tradition leaves us in the lurch,
And who, nor stay at home, nor go to church:
The light-within-enthusiasts, who let fly
Against our pen and ink divinity,
Who boldly do pretend (but who’ll believe it)?
If Genesis were lost, they could retrieve it;
Yea, all the sacred writ; pray let them try
On the New Word, their gift of prophecy.
For all them, the new world’s antiquities,
Smother’d in everlasting silence lies:
* * * * *
Who can past things to memory command,
Till one with Aaron’s breast-plate up shall stand?
On the Bright and the Dark Side of that American Pillar, the Reverend Mr. William Thompson; Pastor of the Church at Braintree. Who triumphed on Dec. 10, 1666.
BUT may a rural pen try to set forth
Such a great father’s ancient grace and worth!
I undertake a no less arduous theme,
Than the old sages found the Chaldee dream.
’Tis more than Tithes of a profound respect,
That must be paid such a Melchizedeck.
Oxford this light, with tongues and arts doth trim;
And then his northern town doth challenge him.
His time and strength he center’d there in this;
To do good work, and be what now he is.
His fulgent virtues there, and learned strains,
Tall, comely presence, life unsoil’d with stains,
Things most on worthies, in their stories writ,
Did him to moves in orbs of service fit.
Things more peculiar yet, my muse, intend,
Say stranger things than these; so weep and end.
When he forsook first his Oxonian cell,
Some scores at once from popish darkness fell;
So this reformer studied! rare first fruits!
Shaking a crab-tree thus by hot disputes,
The acid juice by miracle turned wine,
And rais’d the spirits of our young divine.
Hearers, like doves, flock’d with contentious wing,
Who should be first, feed most, most homeward bring,
