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As far as I know, in Middle English and Early Modern English "ye" was used for subjects and "you" for objects. Yet in "To My Dear and Loving Husband" by Anne Bradstreet they are both used as subjects in one line: "Compare with me ye women if you can". Why is that? My guess is that in the case of "ye" it is used as a vocative, while "you" is a nominative.

Maria Sokolova
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I think it's right to interpret "ye women" as a vocative phrase in that poem (which explains why the edition that you link to punctuates it with surrounding commas: ""Compare with me, ye women, if you can").

You're also right that ye was originally a subject pronoun, you the corresponding object pronoun. But in Early Modern English, the two forms got pretty confused. Either ye or you could serve as either nominative or vocative, or even accusative, according to the English Grammar of Eduard Adolf Maetzner (translated by Clair James Grece, 1874):

The nominative (also vocative) of the plural ye has in Modern-English yielded to you. John Wallis still cites yee as the nominative, but in the polite address lets you alone pass. Alexander Gill gives, as the nominative and vocative ye and you, as the accusative, you. You was in the first case used only emphatically, especially in Spenser. In common life, as well as in poetry ye still continues alongside of you: And you, the brightest of the stars above, Ye saints ... Be witness (Rowe). Were you, ye fair, but cautious who ye trust (id.). Descend, ye nine! descend and sing (Pope). Ye may no more contend (Longfellow).

[...]

In literature even the interchange of the oblique case you with ye is widely diffused: A south-west blow on ye! (Shakspeare Temp). Vain pomp and glory of the world, I hate ye (id.). Heav'n guard ye all (Otway). [...]

(page 293)

So I wouldn't necessarily assume that Bradstreet consistently used ye for vocative and you for nominative. She does seem to be fond of using ye in vocative contexts though.

I'm looking through this edition of her poems now and tallying the usages of you and ye that I find.

  • Ye nominative: "both ye and all men know" (Fire), "how do ye shake" (Earth)

  • Ye vocative: "ye high flown quills" (Prologue), "ye martialists", "ye husbandmen", "ye cooks", "Ye Paracelsians", "ye silversmiths", (Fire), "Ye Galenists", "Ye mighty kings", "Ye greedy misers", "ye artificers", "ye affrighted wights", (Earth) "Ye forging smiths", "Ye mariners", (Air)

  • You nominative: "if e'er you deign" (Prologue), "you see", "if e'er you made", "you may see", "may you see", (Fire), "you could claim", "where got you ship and sail", "you will see", "if aught you have", "when once you feel me", (Earth), "though you love", "you know to excel" (Air)

  • You vocative: "and you, philosophers" (Fire), "hark you, wealthy merchants" (Earth),

  • You accusative: "I help you" (Fire) "short of you", "surpass you all", "to tell you of", "calls you forth", (Earth), "what one of you", "speeds you to your port", "heat doth cause you faint" (Air)

It looks like your guess is largely correct, with some occasional variations in usage.

herisson
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  • In “hark you, wealthy merchants” you is nominative (the subject of the imperative), not vocative – she could have said “hark you, ye wealthy merchants” for an actual vocative (or just “hark, ye wealthy merchants”, of course). Possibly similar with “and you, philosophers”, though you’d have to look at the context there. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Aug 23 '20 at 10:54
  • @JanusBahsJacquet: the sentence is "And you, philosophers, if e'er you made a transmutation it was through mine aid." – herisson Aug 23 '20 at 11:13
  • Generally, yes – for the simple reason that the subject of an inflected verb form is always in the nominative (or relevant subject case). I’m not aware of any languages that have distinct subjective and vocative forms of personal pronouns (essentially, second person is inherently vocative-like, first and third inherently cannot be vocative-like), so morphologically I doubt there’s a way to tell. But functionally, the difference can be seen, I’d say. In the philosopher example, it’s a tough call, but I’d say it ‘feels’ vocative there. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Aug 23 '20 at 11:19
  • @JanusBahsJacquet Even thou is the form used vocatively, as in Shakespeare’s Thou whoreson zed, thou unnecessary letter! or Melville’s There is some unsuffusing thing beyond thee, thou clear spirit, to whom all thy eternity is but time. However, most would-be examples of pronouns used in vocatives are actually being used as determiners in the noun phrase that serves as the subject of the tensed verb. These second-person examples are no different in character from first-person plural determinative examples like We farmers are hungry, and those you would hardly call vocatives, eh? – tchrist Aug 23 '20 at 18:15
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    @tchrist Even in real vocative contexts, the pronoun is mostly used determinatively – outside of things like “oi, you!” – just not in NPs that serve as subjects. The two examples you give are fundamentally different from ‘we farmers are hungry’, precisely because the NP they determine is nominative/subjective in that, not vocative. It’s the difference between “you idiots think you’re so clever” (subjective) and “you idiots, you think you’re so clever” (vocative). – Janus Bahs Jacquet Aug 23 '20 at 18:20
  • @JanusBahsJacquet Nicely contrasted examples you have there, thanks. – tchrist Aug 23 '20 at 18:31
  • @tchrist (Pronouns naturally not aimed at present company!) – Janus Bahs Jacquet Aug 23 '20 at 18:32