BAY PSALM BOOK.--"The divines in the country" joined to translate "into English metre" the whole book of _Psalms_ from the original Hebrew, and they probably made the worst metrical translation in existence. In their preface to this work, known as the _Bay Psalm Book_ (1640), the first book of verse printed in the British American colonies, they explained that they did not strive for a more poetic translation because "God's altar needs not our polishings." The following verses from _Psalm_ cxxxvii. are a sample of the so-called metrical translation which the Puritans sang:-- "1. The rivers on of Babilon there-when wee did sit downe: yea even then wee mourned, when wee remembred Sion. "2. Our Harps wee did it hang amid, upon the willow tree. "3. Because there they that us away led in captivitee, Requir'd of us a song, & thus askt mirth: us waste who laid, sing us among a Sion's song, unto us then they said." MICHAEL WIGGLESWORTH (1631-1705).--This Harvard graduate and Puritan preacher published in 1662 a poem setting forth some of the tenets of Calvinistic theology. This poem, entitled _The Day of Doom, or a Poetical Description of the Great and Last Judgment_, had the largest circulation of any colonial poem. The following lines represent a throng of infants at the left hand of the final Judge, pleading against the sentence of infant damnation:-- "'Not we, but he ate of the tree, whose fruit was interdicted; Yet on us all of his sad fall the punishment's inflicted. How could we sin that had not been, or how is his sin our, Without consent, which to prevent we never had the pow'r?'" Wigglesworth represents the Almighty as replying:-- "'You sinners are, and such a share as sinners may expect; Such you shall have, for I do save none but mine own Elect. Yet to compare your sin with their who liv'd a longer time, I do confess yours is much less, though every sin's a crime. "'A crime it is, therefore in bliss you may not hope to dwell; But unto you I shall allow the easiest room in Hell.'"