Benjamin Tompson
(1642-1714)
New Englands Crisis1
(1642-1714)
New Englands Crisis
TO THE READER
Courteous Reader,
I never thought this Babe of my weak Phantasie worthy of an Imprimatur; but being an Abortive, it was beg'd 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 prest to death: but if it displease not many and satisfie any, its to me a glorious Reward, who am more willing than able to any Service to my Countrey and Friend,
Farewell
New Englands Crisis
THE
PROLOGUE.
The times wherein old Pompion was a Saint,
When men far'd hardly yet without complaint
On vilest Cates;2 the dainty Indian Maize
Was eat with Clamp-shells out of wooden Trayes
Under thatcht Hutts without the cry of Rent,
And the best Sawce to every Dish, Content.
When Flesh was food, and hairy skins made coats,
And men as wel as birds had chirping Notes.
When Cimnels3 were accounted noble bloud
Among the tribes of common herbage food.
Of Ceres bounty form'd was many a knack
Enough to fill poor Robins Almanack.
These golden times (too fortunate to hold)
Were quickly sin'd away for love of gold.
Twas then among the bushes, not the street
If one in place did an inferiour meet,
Good morrow br/other, 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 wise Fathers thought
Than the cast fashions from all Europe br/ought.
Twas in those days an honest Grace would hold
Till an hot pudding grew at heart a cold.
And men had better stomachs to religion
Than I to capon, turkey-cock or pigeon.
When honest Sisters met to pray not prate
About their own and not their neighbours state.
During Plain Dealings4 Reign, that worthy Stud
Of th' ancient planters race before the flood
These times were good, Merchants car'd not a rush
For other fare than Jonakin5 and Mush.
Although men far'd and lodged very hard
Yet Innocence was better than a Guard.
Twas long before spiders and wormes had drawn
Their dungy webs or hid with cheating Lawne
New-Englands beautyes, which stil seem'd to me
Illustrious in their own simplicity.
Twas ere the neighbouring Virgin-land had br/oke
The Hogsheads of her worse than hellish smoak.
Twas ere the Islands sent their Presents in,
Which but to use was counted next to sin.
Twas ere a Barge had made so rich a fraight
As Chocholatte, dust-gold and bitts of eight.
Ere wines from France and Moscovadoe too
Without the which the drink will scarsly doe,
From western Isles, ere fruits and dilicacies,
Did rot maids teeth and 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 chrystal air
To drive our christian Planters to despair.
No sooner pagan malice peeped forth
But Valour snib'd6 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 coales
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 Councells sate,
These gave prognosticks of our future fate,
If these be longer liv'd our hopes increase,
These warrs will usher in a longer peace:
But if New-Englands love die in its youth
The grave will open next for blessed Truth.
This Theame is out of date, the peacefull hours
When Castles needed not but pleasant bowers.
Not ink, but bloud and tears now serve the turn
To draw the figure of New-Englands Urne.
New Englands 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 mirrour of the Christian world
Lyes burnt to heaps in part, her Streamers furl'd
Grief reigns, joyes flee and dismal fears surprise,
Not dastard spirits only but the wise.
Thus have the fairest hopes deceiv'd 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.
Ev'n 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.
IN seventy five the Critick of our years
Commenc'd our war with Phillip and his peers.7
Whither the sun in Leo had inspir'd
A feav'rish heat, and Pagan spirits fir'd?
Whither some Romish Agent hatcht 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, and next to them his Commons,
Kennel'd together all without a summons.
"My friends, our Fathers were not half so wise
As we our selves 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 countrey they enjoy the best,
And quickly they intend to have the rest.
This no wunnegin,8 so big matchit9 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 doe,
We drink we so big whipt,10 but english they
Go sneep,11 no more, or else a little pay.
Me meddle Squaw me hang'd, our fathers kept
What Squaws they would whither they wakt or slept.
Now if you'le fight Ile get you english coats,
And wine to drink out of their Captains throats.
The richest merchants houses shall be ours,
Wee'l ly no more on matts or dwell in bowers
Wee'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 swarmes then we know how to quell.
This my resolve, let neighbouring Sachems know,
And every one that hath club, gun or bow."
This was assented to, and for a close
He strokt his smutty beard and curst 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 forthwith bloody hearts, the first they meet
Of men or beasts they butcher at their feet.
They round our skirts, they pare, they fleece they kil,
And to our bordering towns do what they will.
Poor Hovills (better far then Caesars court
In the experience of the meaner sort)
Receive from them their doom next execution,
By flames reduc'd to horror and confusion:
Here might be seen the smoking funeral piles
Of wildred towns pitcht distant many miles.
Here might be seen the infant from the br/east
Snatcht by a pagan hand to lasting rest:
The mother Rachel-like12 shrieks out my child
She wrings her hands and raves as she were wild.
The br/uitish wolves suppress her anxious moan
By crueltyes more deadly of her own.
Will she or nill the chastest turtle must
Tast of the pangs of their unbr/idled lust.
From farmes to farmes, from towns to towns they post,
They strip, they bind, they ravish, flea13 and roast.
The beasts which wont their masters crib to know,
Over the ashes of their shelters low.
What the inexorable flames doe 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 armes: the craving merchants plot
Not to augment but keep what they have got.
And every soul which hath but common sence
Thinks it the time to make a just defence.
Alarums every where resound in streets,
From West sad tidings with the Eastern meets.
Our common fathers in their Councels close
A martial treaty with the pagan foes,
All answers center here that fire and sword
Must make their Sachem universal Lord.
This armes the english with a resolution
To give the vaporing Scab a retribution.
Heav'ns they consult by prayer, the best design
A furious foe to quell or undermine.
RESOLV'D that from the Massachusets bands
Be prest on service some Herculean hands
And certainly he wel deserv'd a jerke
That slipt the Collar from so good a work.
Some Volunteers, some by compulsion goe
To range the hideous forrest for a foe.
The tender Mother now's all bowels grown,
Clings to her son as if they'd melt in one.
Wives claspe 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 torn all springs of tears,
Their hearts are so surpriz'd with panick fears.
But dolefull shrieks of captives summon forth
Our walking castles, men of noted worth,
Made all of life, each Captain was a Mars,
His name too strong to stand on waterish verse:
Due praise I leave to some poetick hand
Whose pen and witts 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 Centinels 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 bowers with arrows every tree did bear
The swamps were Courts of Guard, thither retir'd
The stragling blew-coats when their guns were fir'd,
In dark Meanders, and these winding groves,
Where Beares and panthers with their Monarch moves
These far more cruel slily hidden lay,
Expecting english men to move that way.
One party lets them slip, 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 fel a Captain, to be nam'd 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 fil'd 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 stor'd for after use
Sustain their wicked plunder and abuse.
Poor people 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 condemn'd the Gauntelet to run;
Death would a mercy prove to such as those
Who feel the rigour of such hellish foes.
Posts daily on their Pegasean Steeds
br/ing sad reports of worse then Nero's deeds,
Such br/uitish Murthers as would paper stain
Not to be heard in a Domitians Reign.14
The field which nature hid is common laid,
And Mothers bodies ript 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 br/eath,
Many hot welcomes from the natives arms
Hid in their sculking holes many alarms
Our br/ethren had, and weary weary trants,15
Sometimes in melting heats and pinching wants:
Sometimes the clouds with sympathizing tears
Ready to burst discharg'd about their ears:
Sometimes on craggy hills, anon in bogs
And miery swamps better befitting hogs,
And after tedious Marches little boast
Is to be heard of stewd or bakt or roast,
Their beds are hurdles, open house they keep
Through shady boughs the stars upon them peep,
Their chrystal drink drawn from the mothers br/east
Disposes not to mirth but sleep and rest.
Thus many dayes and weeks, some months run out
To find and quell the vagabonding rout,
Who like inchanted Castles fair appear,
But all is vanisht 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 haile arrows and bullets flew:
The English courage with whole swarms dispute,
Hundreds they hack in pieces in pursuit.
Sed haud impune,16 English sides do feel
As well as tawny skins the lead and steel
And some such gallant Sparks by bullets fell,
As might have curst the powder back to Hell:
Had only Swords these skirmishes decided
All Pagan Sculls had been long since divided.
The lingring war out-lives the Summer sun,
Who hence departs hoping it might be done,
Ere his return at Spring but ah hee'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 bloud
Now sets its steely teeth to feast on wood.
The forests suffer now, by waight constrein'd
To kiss the earth with souldiers lately br/ain'd.
The lofty oakes and ash doe wagge the head
To see so many of their neighbours dead;
Their fallen carcasses are caried thence
To stand our enemies in their defence.
Their Myrmidons inclos'd with clefts of trees
Are busie 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 to 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 rear'd in one dayes space
As shall an hundred english men out-face.
Canonicus17 precincts there swarmes unite,
Rather to keep a winter guard then fight.
A dern18 and dismal swamp some Scout had found
Whose bosome was a spot of rising ground
Hedg'd up with mighty oakes, maples and ashes,
Nurst up with springs, quick boggs and miery plashes,
A place which nature coyn'd on very nonce
For tigers not for men to be a sconce.
Twas here these Monsters shapt and fac'd like men
Took up there Rendezvouz and br/umal19 den,
Deeming the depth of snow, hail, frost and ice
Would make our Infantry more tame and wise
Then by forsaking beds and loving wives,
Meerly for indian skins to hazzard 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 ease.
Here English valour most illustrious shone,
Finding their numbers ten times ten to one.
A shower of leaden hail our captains feel
Which made the br/avest blades among us reel.
Like to some ant-hill newly spurn'd abr/oad,
Where each takes heels and bears away his load:
Instead of plate and jewels, indian trayes
With baskets up they snatch and run their wayes.
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 every one it meets.
Here might be heard an hideous Indian cry,
Of wounded ones who in the Wigwams fry.
Had we been Canibals here might we feast
On br/ave Westphalia gammons ready drest.
The tauny hue is Ethiopick made
Of such on whome 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 souldier throws.
Six of our Leaders in the first assault
Crave readmission to their Mothers Vault
Who had they fell in antient Homers dayes
Had been enrol'd with Hecatombs of praise.
As clouds disperst, the natives troops divide,
And like the streames along the thickets glide.
Some br/eathing time we had, and short God knows
But new alarums from recruited foes
Bounce at our eares, the mounting clouds of smoak
From martyr'd townes the heav'ns 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 usefull foe,
Which this grand cheat the world will overflow.
The wandring Priest to every one 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 doe.
This monster Warre hath hatcht a beauteous dove
In dogged hearts, of most unfeigned love,
Fraternal love the livery 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 abr/idgment of our miseryes.
If Mildew, Famine, Sword, and fired Townes,
If Slaughter, Captivating, Deaths and wounds,
If daily whippings once reform our wayes,
These all will issue in our Fathers Praise;
If otherwise, the sword must never rest
Till all New-Englands Glory it divest.
A Supplement.
What meanes this silence of Harvardine quils
While Mars triumphant thunders on our hills.
Have pagan priests their Eloquence confin'd
To no mans use but the mysterious mind?
Have Pawaws20 charm'd 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 pitty of an Elegy.
Nay rather should my quils were they all swords
Wear to the hilts in some lamenting words.
I dare not stile them poetry but truth,
The dwindling products of my crazy youth.
If these essayes shall raise some quainter pens
Twil to the Writer make a rich amends.
Marlburyes Fate
When Londons fatal bills were blown abr/oad
And few but Specters travel'd 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 feavers formerly to tenants sent
Arrest the timbers of the tenement.
Ere the late ruines of old Groton's cold,
Of Marlbury's peracute disease we're told.
The feet of such who neighbouring dwellings urnd
Unto her ashes, not her doors return'd
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 colour 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 Bloud and oild
With fat out of white humane bodyes boil'd.
Draw them with clubs like maules and full of stains,
Like Vulcans anvilling New-Englands br/ains.
Let round be gloomy forests with crag'd rocks
Where like to castles they may hide their flocks,
Till oppertunity their cautious friend
Shall jogge them fiery worship to attend.
Shew them like serpents in an avious21 path
Seeking to sow the fire-br/ands 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 Ladyes too;
And least our Jealousie think they partake,
For the red stage with clouds a curtain make.
Let dogs be gag'd and every quickning sound
Be charm'd to silence, here and there all round
The town to suffer, from a thousand holes
Let crawle these fiends with br/ands and fired poles,
Paint here the house and there the barn on fire.
With holocausts ascending in a spire.
Here granaries, yonder the Churches smoak
Which vengeance on the actors doth invoke.
Let Morpheus with his leaden keyes have bound
In feather-beds some, some upon the ground,
That none may burst his drowsie shackles till
The br/uitish pagans have obtain'd their will,
And Vulcan files them off then Zeuxis paint
The phrenzy glances of the sinking saint.
Draw there the Pastor for his bible crying,
The souldier for his sword, The Glutton frying
With streams of glory-fat,22 the thin-jaw'd Miser
Oh had I given this I had been wiser.
Let here the Mother seem a statue turn'd
At the sad object of her bowels burn'd.
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 fixt,
Ready to quit his hold, and yet hold fast
By the great Atlas of the Heavens vast.
Paint Papists muttering ore their apish beads
Whome the blind follow while the blind man leads.
Let Ataxy23 be mounted on a throne
Imposing her Commands on every one.
A many-headed monster without eyes
To see the wayes which wont to make men wise.
Give her a thousand tongues with wings and hands
To be ubiquitary in Commands,
But let the concave of her skull appear
Clean washt 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, th'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 mens 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 wee thus to see the wheeles run cross
Since Providence it self sustaines 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 eares:
Kingdoms would jostle out their Kings and set
The poor Mechanick up whome next they met,
Or rather would whole kingdoms with the world
Into a Chaos their first egge be hurl'd.
Ther's none this Providence of the Most High
Who can survive and write its Elegie:
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 Lawes but not of God,
Since they have felt the smart of common rod.
Twas much I thought they did escape so long,
Who Gospel truth so manifestly wronge:
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 humane things:
But know the dismal day draws neer wherein
The fire shall earth it self dissolve and sin.
Seaconk Plain Engagement.
On our Pharsalian Plaines, comprising space
For Caesars host br/ave Pompey to outface,
An handful of our men are walled round
With Indian swarmes; anon their pieces sound
A Madrigal like heav'ns artillery
Lightning and thunderbolts their bullets fly.
Her's hosts to handfuls, 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 dye 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 Bloud be over? When?
Quickly we pray oh Lord! say thou Amen.
Seaconk or Rehoboths Fate.
I once conjectur'd that those tigers hard
To reverend Newmans24 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 publick stage
Whereon these Nimrods act their monstrous rage.
All crueltyes which paper stain'd before
Are acted to the life here ore and ore.
Chelmsfords Fate.
Ere famous Winthrops25 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 moanes,
Enough to melt the very marble stones:
Fire-br/ands and bullets, darts and deaths and wounds
Confusive outcryes every where resounds:
The natives shooting with the mixed cryes,
With all the crueltyes the foes devise
Might fill a volume, but I leave a space
For mercyes still successive in there place
Not doubting but the foes have done their worst,
And shall by heaven suddenly be curst.
Let this dear Lord the sad Conclusion be
Of poor New-Englands 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. Tompson.
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 Mistris 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 hurle,
Their undulating silks they closely furle.
The pick-axe one as a Commandress holds,
While t'other at her awkness gently scolds.
One puffs and sweats, the other mutters why
Cant you promove27 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 surprize,
They want no sack nor cakes, they are more wise.
These br/ave essayes 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.
Notes
10. That is, whipped as punishment under English law.
11. Sleep (evidently meant to represent pidgin English).
14. Domitian (A.D. 81-96) was a Roman emperor famous for persecuting early Christians.
20. An Indian medicine man or priest.
22. The clearest fat from cooked meat.
24. Samuel Newman (1602-1663) was the first minister in Rehoboth.