Becoming America - An Exploration of American Literature from Precolonial to Post-Revolution, 2018a

BECOMING AMERICA
SEVENTEENTH CENTURY ENGLISH COLONIAL LITERATURE
We took great care to get a share
in endless happiness:
We pray’d and wept, we Fast-days kept,
lewd ways we did eschew:
We joyful were thy Word to h [. . .] ar,
we fo [. . .] m’d our lives anew.
LXXXIII
We thought our sin had pardon’d bi [. . .],
that our estate was good,
Our debts all paid, [. . .] ur peace well made,
our Souls wash [. . .] wi [. . .] h [. . .] hy B [. . .] oud.
Lord, why dost thou rej [. . .] ct us now,
who have not thee rejected,
Nor utterly true sanctity
and holy li [. . .] e neglected?
LXXXIV
The Judge ince [. . .] sed at their pretenced
self-vaunting piety,
With such a look as trembling strook
into them, made reply;
O impudent, impeni [. . .] ent,
and guile [. . .] ul generation!
Think you that I cannot descry
your hearts abomination?
LXXXV
You not receiv’d, nor yet believ [. . .] d
my promises of grace;
Nor were you wise enough to prize
my reconciled face:
But did presume, that to assume
which was not yours to take,
And challenged the childrens bread,
yet would not sin forsake.
LXXXVI
B [. . .] ing too bold you laid fast hold
where int’ [. . .] est you had none,
Your selves deceiving by your believing;
all which you might have known.
You [. . .] an away (but ran astray)
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