POETRY

The trend of Puritan theology and the hard conditions of life did not
encourage the production of poetry. The Puritans even wondered if singing
in church was not an exercise which turned the mind from God. The Rev. John
Cotton investigated the question carefully under four main heads and six
subheads, and he cited scriptural authority to show that Paul and Silas
(_Acts_, xvi., 25) had sung a _Psalm_ in the prison. Cotton therefore
concluded that the _Psalms_ might be sung in church.

[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF TITLE-PAGE TO "BAY PSALM BOOK"]

BAY PSALM BOOK.--"The divines in the country" joined to translate "into
English metre" the whole book of _Psalms_ from the original Hebrew, and
they probably made the worst metrical translation in existence. In their
preface to this work, known as the _Bay Psalm Book_ (1640), the first book
of verse printed in the British American colonies, they explained that they
did not strive for a more poetic translation because "God's altar needs not
our polishings." The following verses from _Psalm_ cxxxvii. are a sample of
the so-called metrical translation which the Puritans sang:--

"1. The rivers on of Babilon
there-when wee did sit downe:
yea even then wee mourned, when
wee remembred Sion.

"2. Our Harps wee did it hang amid,
upon the willow tree.