Anne Bradstreet Poem Analysis.

Born: March 20,1612
Died: September 16,1672

Important Life Events:

• She was the first woman to be recognized as an accomplished New World poet.
• In approximately 1628 she married Simon Bradstreet.
• In 1867 John Harvard Ellis published her complete works.
• She came to the New World on July 22, 1630.
• She also never attended school. She was taught at home by her father.

Type of Poetry/Style:
Religious and spiritual.

By Night When Others Soundly Slept:
1
By night when others soundly slept (A)
And hath at once both ease and Rest (B),
My waking eyes were open kept (A)
And so to lie I found it best (B).
2
I sought him whom my Soul did Love (A),
With tears I sought him earnestly (B).
He bow’d his ear down from Above (A).
In vain I did not seek or cry (B).

3
My hungry Soul he fill’d with Good (A);
He in his Bottle put my tears (B),
My smarting wounds washt in his blood (A),
And banisht thence my Doubts and fears (B).
4
What to my Saviour shall I give (A)
Who freely hath done this for me? (B)
I’ll serve him here whilst I shall live (A)
And Loue him to Eternity (B).

Rhyme Pattern: ABAB
Personification: describing her soul feeling hunger.
Correlation/Reference: To God.
Repetition: The word my in lines one and three of stanza three.
Theme: Her Having Faith in God.

To My Dear Loving Husband:
If ever two were one, then surely we(A).
If ever man were loved by wife, then thee(A).
If ever wife was happy in a man(B),
Compare with me, ye women, if you can(B).
I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold(C),
Or all the riches that the East doth hold(C).
My love is such that rivers cannot quench(D),
Nor ought but love from thee give recompense(D).
Thy love is such I can no way repay(E);
The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray(E).
Then while we live, in love let’s so persever(F),
That when we live no more, we may live ever(F).

Rhyming Pattern: AABBCCDDEEFF
Repetition: " If ever"
Allusion: Her love for her husband is like a river not even a river ca quench, this describes a certain desire she has for her husband.
Alliteration: Were/ We, Wife/Was, Live/Love.
Theme: Love

A Letter to Her Husband Upon Public Employment:
My head,my heart,mine Eyes,my life,nay more,My joy,(A)

my Magazine of earthly store,(A)
If two be one, as surely thou and I(B),
How stayest thou there, whilst I at Ipswich lye(B)?
So many steps, head from the heart to sever(A)
If but a neck, soon should we be together(A):
I like the earth this season, mourn in black(B),
My Sun is gone so far in’s Zodiack(B),
Whom whilst I ’joy’d, nor storms, nor frosts I felt(A),
His warmth such frigid colds did cause to melt(A).
My chilled limbs now nummed lye forlorn(B);
Return, return sweet Sol from Capricorn(B);
In this dead time, alas, what can I more(A)
Then view those fruits which through thy heat I bore(A)?

Which sweet contentment yield me for a space(A),
True living Pictures of their Fathers face(B).
O strange effect! now thou art Southward gone(B),
I weary grow, the tedious day so long(A);
But when thou Northward to me shalt return(A),
I wish my Sun may never set, but burn(B)
Within the Cancer of my glowing breast(B),
The welcome house of him my dearest guest(A).
Where ever, ever stay, and go not thence(A),
Till natures sad decree shall call thee hence(B);
Flesh of thy flesh, bone of thy bone(B),
I here, thou there, yet both but one(A).

Repetition: The words "my" and "I".
Rhyme Pattern: AABB
Metaphor: She describes her husband as being the sun.
Zodiac Symbolism: " return, return sweet soul from Capricorn."
Theme: Absents of the beloved.

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