Huswifery
Huswifery by Edward Taylor
Make me, O Lord, Thy spinning wheel complete,
Thy holy word my distaff make for me,
Make mine affections Thy swfit flyers neat,
And make my soul Thy holy spool to be.
My conversation make to be Thy reel,
And reel the yarn thereon spun of Thy wheel.
Make me Thy loom then, knit therein this twin;
And make Thy holy spirit, Lord, wind quills;
Then weave the web Thyself. The yarn is fine.
Edward Taylor was a Puritan ‘frontier minister” and doctor in western Massachusetts. This poem was written around 1685.
Taylor did not intend his poems for publication and, they were not “discovered” until 1930. “Huswifery” works with the conceit of cloth production, starting with the spinning wheel, moving to the loom, and culminating in the finished clothing. The elaborate imagery and emotional tone are atypical of Puritan religious poetry, which tends to eschew such rhetorical and personal features. huswifery - housekeeping distaff - staff on which flax or wool is wound for use in spinning affections - emotions flyers - part of a spinning wheel that twists fibers into yarn quills - weavers spindles or bobbins ordinances - sacraments or religious rites fulling mills - machines that shrink and thicken cloth to the texture of felt; place where raw cloth is cleaned pinked - decorated
Thine ordinances make my fulling mills.
QUESTIONS
Then dye the same in heavenly colors choice,
1.
All pinked with varnished flowers of paradise.
Then clothe therewith mine understanding, will,
2.
Affections, judgment, conscience, memory,
My words and actions, that their shine may fill
3.
My ways with glory and Thee glorify.
Then mine apparel shall display before Ye
That I am clothed in holy robes for glory.
4.
5.
How do the images in the first two stanzas contribute to the idea of being “clothed in holy robes for glory,” stated in the third stanza?
A) What images in this poem may have contradicted the
Make me, O Lord, Thy spinning wheel complete,
Thy holy word my distaff make for me,
Make mine affections Thy swfit flyers neat,
And make my soul Thy holy spool to be.
My conversation make to be Thy reel,
And reel the yarn thereon spun of Thy wheel.
Make me Thy loom then, knit therein this twin;
And make Thy holy spirit, Lord, wind quills;
Then weave the web Thyself. The yarn is fine.
Edward Taylor was a Puritan ‘frontier minister” and doctor in western Massachusetts. This poem was written around 1685.
Taylor did not intend his poems for publication and, they were not “discovered” until 1930. “Huswifery” works with the conceit of cloth production, starting with the spinning wheel, moving to the loom, and culminating in the finished clothing. The elaborate imagery and emotional tone are atypical of Puritan religious poetry, which tends to eschew such rhetorical and personal features. huswifery - housekeeping distaff - staff on which flax or wool is wound for use in spinning affections - emotions flyers - part of a spinning wheel that twists fibers into yarn quills - weavers spindles or bobbins ordinances - sacraments or religious rites fulling mills - machines that shrink and thicken cloth to the texture of felt; place where raw cloth is cleaned pinked - decorated
Thine ordinances make my fulling mills.
QUESTIONS
Then dye the same in heavenly colors choice,
1.
All pinked with varnished flowers of paradise.
Then clothe therewith mine understanding, will,
2.
Affections, judgment, conscience, memory,
My words and actions, that their shine may fill
3.
My ways with glory and Thee glorify.
Then mine apparel shall display before Ye
That I am clothed in holy robes for glory.
4.
5.
How do the images in the first two stanzas contribute to the idea of being “clothed in holy robes for glory,” stated in the third stanza?
A) What images in this poem may have contradicted the