Poem of the Week – To my Dear and Loving Husband by Anne Bradstreet
Anne Bradstreet was the most acclaimed English writer of the early American colonists and held the distinction of being the first poet settler to be published. Highly educated and lyrically gifted, Bradstreet produced a myriad of celebrated poems concerned with religious and domestic subjects. Often chastised for her work by men who believed women had no role in literature, her legacy gained lasting recognition in the twentieth century when poets and critics like John Berryman noted her distinctive intelligence, stylistic elegance and sentimental sincerity, which you can recognise in this week’s poem To My Dear and Loving Husband.
This poem was published posthumously alongside other verses that pertained to her private life as a loving mother and wife. To My Dear and Loving Husband, expresses the bountiful affection Bradstreet felt for her spouse. Being a devout Puritan, Bradstreet’s poem is oddly romantic and verges remarkably on sensuality at times. I can almost imagine Juliet declaiming these lines to a mawkish Romeo after the completion of their nuptials.
We hope you enjoy this week’s poem as much as we did.
To My Dear and Loving Husband
If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were loved by wife, then thee.
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me, ye women, if you can.
I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold,
Or all the riches that the East doth hold.
My love is such that rivers cannot quench,
Nor ought but love from thee give recompense.
Thy love is such I can no way repay;
The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.
Then while we live, in love let’s so persever,
That when we live no more, we may live ever.