EDWARD TAYLOR

[c. 1642–1729]

Housewifery

Born in England, Edward Taylor (c. 1642–1729) immigrated to the colonies, where he became a clergyman in Westfield, a frontier village in what is now Massachusetts. Taylor regarded his poems as sacramental acts of private devotion and asked that they never be published. When he died, his manuscripts were placed in the Yale University library; two centuries passed before his work was discovered. The selection of his poems published in 1939 established him as a writer of genuine power, perhaps unsurpassed in America until William Cullen Bryant appeared a century and a half later.

Make me, O Lord, thy spinning wheel complete.

Thy holy word my distaff make for me.

Make mine affections thy swift flyers neat,

And make my soul thy holy spool to be.

My conversation make to be thy reel,

And reel the yarn thereon spun on thy wheel.

Make me thy loom then, knit therein this twine;

And make thy holy spirit, Lord, wind quills.

Then weave the web thyself. The yarn is fine.

Thine ordinances make my fulling mills.

Then dye the same in heavenly colors choice,

All pinked with varnished flowers of paradise.

Then clothe therewith mine understanding, will,

Affections, judgment, conscience, memory,

My words, and actions, that their shine may fill

My ways with glory and thee glorify.

Then mine apparel shall display before ye

That I am clothed in holy robes for glory.