Make me, O Lord, thy Spining Wheele compleate.
Thy Holy Worde my Distaff make for mee.
Make mine Affections thy Swift Flyers neate
And make my Soule thy holy Spoole to bee.
My Conversation make to be thy Reele
And reele the yarn thereon spun of thy Wheele.
The imagery contained in the opening stanza of Taylor’s most anthologized and famous work, “Huswifery” all all representative of the simplicity and lack of adornment Puritan poetry. Despite the plain quality of the language and the directness of the imagery, however, the metaphorical connection is rich and complex. The spinning wheel and the subsequent symbolism of the processing of yarn into common, necessary objects all serve the dual purposes of existing as a thanks to God as well as a commentary on the simple needs of Puritans.
Infinity, when all things it beheld
In Nothing, and of Nothing all did build
This poem is the first in a series which are collectively called “God’s determinations touching up his Elect; and the Elect’s combat in their conversion, and coming up to God in Christ, together with the comfortable effects thereof.” That long title is appropriate since the series is a sort of spiritual history of the world in verse. These poems cover the course of Christian religious beliefs and worship from the starting point of the creation of the world which is herein described in the opening to “The Preface.”
As travelers afoot, and so do trace
The road that gives them right thereto,
While in this coach these sweetly sing,
As they to glory ride therein.
Taylor’s series traces the spiritual history of the world from the creation of the world to the opportunity afforded the followers of Christ—the Elect—to attain redemption in heaven. These are the final words of the final poem in that series, bringing the history to its logical conclusion with the members of God’s Elect riding to redemption in heaven aboard their coach bound for glory.
Thou sorrow, venom Elfe.
Is this thy play,
To spin a web out of thyselfe
To catch a Fly?
For Why
These lines commence another series of poems by Taylor which go by a collective title that is far less a mouthful than the series to which the two previous poems belong. Known as “occurants” these poems are unified by the theme of Taylor extricating deeper religious significance from everyday occurrences like a rainstorm or using a flint to ignite a flame. The first stanza posits the question of why and from this why the poet works from the mundane observation of spider catching prey in its web to an allegory in which the spider is Satan, his prey are humans and the integrity of web holding together or breaking apart symbolizing the unpredictability of God’s grace.
Five Babes thou tookst from me before this Stroake.
Thine arrows then into my bowells broake,
But now they pierce into my bosom smart,
Do strike and stob me in the very heart.
Taylor did not just write religious poetry; he occasionally wrote elegies and the most deeply personal is on written as an untitled elegy on the occasion of his wife’s death. The opening lines are one of the few expressions which hint at the profound personal tragedies which ravaged his home life and tested his faith. Here he speaks about the unspeakable: the early childhood deaths of five of six daughters. The final line here represents an even rarer occasion in his poetry; a barely noticeable admission of how personal tragedy tested the strength and commitment of his faith in God.
