With troubled heart and trembling hand I write.
The heavens have changed to sorrow my delight.
How oft with dissappointment have I
When I on fading things my hopes have set.
Experience might 'fore this have made me
To value things according to their price.
Was ever stable joy yet found below?
Or perfect bliss without mixture of woe?
I knew she was but as a withering flower,
That's here today, perhaps gone in an hour;
Like as a bubble, or the brittle glass,
Or like a shadow turning, as it was.
More fool, then,
I to look on that was
As if mine own, when thus impermanent.
Farewell, dear child; thou ne'er shalt come to me,
But yet a while and I shall go to thee.
Meantime my throbbing heart's cheered up with this—Thou with thy Savior art in endless bliss.
This poem is taken from Bradstreet's book "Several Poems" printed by John Foster of Boston in 1678
