none but mine own Elect.
Yet to compare your sin with their
who liv'd a longer time,
I do confess yours is much less,
though every sin's a crime.

"'A crime it is, therefore in bliss
you may not hope to dwell;
But unto you I shall allow
the easiest room in Hell.'"

When we read verse like this, we realize how fortunate the Puritanism of
Old England was to have one great poet schooled in the love of both
morality and beauty. John Milton's poetry shows not only his sublimity and
high ideals, but also his admiration for beauty, music, and art.
Wigglesworth's verse is inferior to much of the ballad doggerel, but it has
a swing and a directness fitted to catch the popular ear and to lodge in
the memory. While some of his work seems humorous to us, it would not have
made that impression on the early Puritans. At the same time, we must not
rely on verse like this for our understanding of their outlook on life and
death. Beside Wigglesworth's lines we should place the epitaph, "Reserved
for a Glorious Resurrection," composed by the great orthodox Puritan
clergyman, Cotton Mather (p. 46), for his own infant, which died unbaptized
when four days old. It is well to remember that both the Puritans and their
clergy had a quiet way of believing that God had reserved to himself the
final interpretation of his own word.

ANNE BRADSTREET (1612-1672).--Colonial New England's best poet, or "The
Tenth Muse," as she was called by her friends, was a daughter of the
Puritan governor, Thomas Dudley, and became the wife of another Puritan