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No pleasant tale shall e'er be told,
Nor things recounted done of old.
Nor candle e'er shall shine in thee,
Nor bridegroom's voice e'er heard shall be.
There is little real poetic content in her work, but enough to inspire Berry-man's vision of sexuality imprisoned by a tyranny of conscience. Enough, too, to make Mistress Bradstreet a valid foot note to the age of Milton and Marvell, the honorable inaugurator of American poetry, and one of the first female voices in literature to speak intimately and directly in its own behalf.