Susanna Wright (1697–1785) lived in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and was part of a circle of political, literary, and intellectual colonists. She wrote poetry, raised silkworms, acted as a diplomat in Indian affairs, and served as a minor public official. Her work circulated in Pennsylvania by way of letters, diaries, commonplace books (a type of literary diary), and even schoolwork (some teachers assigned Wright’s poems to their students to copy). Wright never married, and she and a few of her female friends wrote about the significance of singleness and some of the complications of marriage. In this excerpt from her poem, Wright emphasized Boleyn’s position vis-à-vis Henry and the power he held over her. (Hannah Callender chose a particularly potent stanza from Wright’s poem to include in her diary commentary on the Spectator essay about Anne Boleyn’s letter to Henry VIII. See “Hannah Callender, Excerpt from Diary Entry, October 1758.”)
From anxious Thoughts of every future Ill
From these lone Walls which Death & Terror fill,
To you great Sir! A loyal wife from hence,
Writes to assert her injur’d Innocence.
To you, who on a Throne supremely great
Look down & guide the partial Hand of Fate,
Who rias’d your Subject to a royal Bride,
To the imperial Purples gaudy Pride
And glowing Gems around these Temples ty’d
You glowing Gems your dazzling Rays rebate
And fade thou purple, at thy wearers Fate,
To grandeur rais’d, to Misery cast down
And mourn my sad Acquiantance with a Crown
My life & Fame must join the Sacrifice
The last alone all peaceful Thought denies
Renews My Anguish & oe’rflows my Eyes.
For Life & Crown with Patience I forego,
There’s no such Charm in filling Thrones below
My name alone, ‘tis Anna Boylens Name
With whose low station & unspotted Fame
All innocent & happy Days I’d seen,
This harmless Name exalted to a Queen
Is handed infamous to future Times
Loaded with Falshoods, blacken’d o’er with Crimes.
Source: Catherine La Courreye Blecki and Karin A. Wulf, eds., Milcah Martha Moore’s Book: A Commonplace Book from Revolutionary America (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997), 121–22.
Questions