The leaves in th' woods, the hail or drops of rain,
Or in a corn field number every grain,
Or every mote that in the sunshine hops,
May count my sighs, and number all my drops:
Tell him, the countless steps that thou dost trace,
That once a day, thy Spouse thou mayst embrace;
And when thou canst not treat by loving mouth,
Thy rays afar salute her from the south.
But for one month I see no day (poor soul)
Like those far scituate under the pole,
Which day by day long wait for thy arise,
O, how they joy, when thou dost light the skyes.
O Phoebus, hadst thou but thus long from thine,
Restrained the beams of thy beloved shine,
At thy return, if so thou could'st or durst
Behold a Chaos blacker than the first.
Tell him here's worse than a confused matter,
His little world's a fathom under water,
Nought but the fervor of his ardent beams
Hath power to dry the torrent of these streams
Tell him I would say more but cannot well,
Oppressed minds, abruptest tales do tell.
Now post with double speed, mark what I says
By all our loves, conjure him not to stay."

In the third and last, there is simply an imitation of much of the
work of the seventeenth century; with its conceits and twisted
meanings, its mannerisms and baldness, but still the feeling is
there, though Mistress Bradstreet has labored painfully to make it
as unlike nature as possible.