Let no man know is my Desire.
Anne Bradstreet, "Here follows some verses on the burning of our house” (1666)
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This Week: Anne Bradstreet, “Here follows some verses on the burning of our house” (1666)
For Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672), poetry was personal. She wrote for family and friends, to share her experiences and the movements of her faith. Her published collection, The Tenth Muse appeared in London in 1650, and it was widely read — in part because it was written by someone who lived in the early British colonies in North America. This was the first book of poems published by an “American.”
Her husband, Simon Bradstreet, worked for the colonial project called the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and they emigrated to Boston in 1630 in John Winthrop’s ship (he of the “shining city on a hill” fame), along with her parents, the Dudleys. The Bradstreets were newly married and Anne Bradstreet was only 18 and not yet a Puritan. Twenty years (and 8 children, living on the edge of a wilderness) later, her book of poems appeared in London. According to the stories I have read, Bradstreet did not seek publication; rather, her brother collected her verses and sent them to a publisher. But she could be proud — and she would write a charming prologue to the second edition, “The Author to Her Book,” which was published in the edition that came out in 1678.
The poem I have chosen for this week, though, was not intended for the reading public, but for her own heart and her family. The copy I have includes the note “Copied out of a Loose Paper,” with the publication date of 1867.
Here Follows Some Verses Upon the Burning
of Our house, July 10th. 1666. Copied Out of
a Loose Paper.
This poem allows us in to witness an introspective mind go through a spiritual self-reflection and assessment. The Puritans, and Bradstreet herself, practice typological (sign or “type” based) hermeneutics (Biblical study), as their mode of self-reflection. Typological refers to an interpretive practice in which the Old Testament, or Judaic scripture, is used as a set of “types” or tropes that predict the New Testament, and eventually the Second Coming of Jesus (in which the Puritans believed they played a bit part).
But when fully immersed in this mindset, the faithful could see these “types” outside scripture as well. Everything is God, and thus everything is an interpretable sign of God’s will. The Puritans believed that they were a New Testament Chosen People, whose “errand in the wilderness” was preordained by Scripture. And that among them were people sho were already predestined by God to enter heaven, the Chosen ones of the Chosen people. So, in essence, they were living out the unwritten chapters of the New Testament in their day-to-day lives.
All sorts of signs, events or natural objects or feelings, were read against the Bible, to see what verse or story could serve as “justification,” an understanding that what is happening to the supplicant is God’s will for her. For example, in this tradition, a rainbow is seen as a promise of God’s love — that’s how it appears in the Old Testament at the end of the Noah story. Through hermeneutics, or the study of biblical interpretation and translation and through the exegetical methods that emerged through that practice, the truth of God’s inscrutable will can be known. So, by applying one’s experiences to this history of hermeneutics, all the stuff that happens to you, all the stuff you see, even the world itself, is freighted with meaning. A rainbow is never just a rainbow (still isn’t). If you see a rainbow, then you are good in the eyes of God.
OKay, but what if your house burns down? Is this a sign of God’s displeasure or reprimand? Is it a test? What will the neighbors think?
The poem breaks down into three movements, the present, the past, and the future.
The “present” takes place in the fire and on the next morning:
In silent night when rest I took,
For sorrow near I did not look,
I wakened was with thund’ring noise
And piteous shrieks of dreadful voice.
That fearful sound of “fire” and “fire,”
Let no man know is my Desire.
I, starting up, the light did spy,
And to my God my heart did cry
To straighten me in my Distress
And not to leave me succourless.
Then, coming out, behold a space
The flame consume my dwelling place.
And when I could no longer look,
I blest His name that gave and took,
That laid my goods now in the dust.
This part of the poem is so relatable, it almost hurts to read. Sorrow is unlooked for. The shrieks — whose are they? Are her children safe? The lines are tightly rhymed couplets, and they make you read them so, so fast. At first, she begs God not to take everything, to leave them “succorless,” then, before you know it, we are standing outside in our nightgowns, watching our house burn down. She hides her face — “I could no longer look” and begins to pray over the dust that was her things.
In the middle of this part, there was a line I have skipped over that is nearly impossible to interpret syntactically. It is my favorite couplet in the poem:
That fearful sound of “fire” and “fire,”
Let no man know is my Desire.
Does she mean to say that she desired the fire? Let no man know that I Desire to hear that fearful sound of “fire” and “fire”
Or does it say that she desires that no one should know such a sound, to hear the call of “FIRE” coming from your own house? It’s my Desire that no man should know that fearful sound of “fire” and “fire,” as I now know it
Or does it mean, I don’t want anyone to know it’s my house that God willed should burn? "That fearful sound of “fire” and “fire” is coming from my house. My Desire is that no man should know that.
I don’t think we get to know — and this was a poem that the poet wrote for herself and her kids, so I assume they knew what she meant and we must leave it at that. But, that word DESIRE…. it is capitalized, and it is important in this poem.
Because the next part of the poem is all about desire management. How do you manage the wants and longing of the body against the lessons of the spiritual life?
When by the ruins oft I past
My sorrowing eyes aside did cast
And here and there the places spy
Where oft I sate and long did lie.
Here stood that trunk, and there that chest,
There lay that store I counted best.
My pleasant things in ashes lie
And them behold no more shall I.
Under thy roof no guest shall sit,
Nor at thy Table eat a bit.
No pleasant talk shall ‘ere be told
Nor things recounted done of old.
No Candle e'er shall shine in Thee,
Nor bridegroom‘s voice e'er heard shall be.
In silence ever shalt thou lie,
Adieu, Adieu, all’s vanity.
She really lets herself go here. Yes, she gives all to God, and yet, and yet, the memories pour upon her as she walks past the ruins of her home. She repopulates it from her memory, giving the old trunk its place, serving guests at her table, listening to their stories, hearing the sound of her husband’s voice…
I have myself been spared the sound of “fire” and fire” but I know that silence she is talking about. The other night I indulged in a little Zillow version of walking past the ashes of a past life by typing in my old address. The problem with real estate photography is that it shows your former home and your garden in a glow of good staging and lighting, a sort of beau ideal of the life that you left behind. I can hear the voices of my loved ones, I can see my friends and family arranged around my kitchen counter, I can hear the chickens make their morning announcements. I know that daydream of Desire that Bradstreet records here.
And to think that she carved her home out of nothing, to have built it from trees felled on site, to have imported these fineries and “pleasant things” from her old home in England, and never able to return to replace them.
On to the future:
Then straight I ‘gin my heart to chide,
And did thy wealth on earth abide?
Didst fix thy hope on mould'ring dust?
The arm of flesh didst make thy trust?
Raise up thy thoughts above the sky
That dunghill mists away may fly.
Thou hast a house on high erect
Framed by that mighty Architect,
With glory richly furnished,
Stands permanent though this be fled.
It‘s purchased and paid for too
By Him who hath enough to do.
A price so vast as is unknown,
Yet by His gift is made thine own;
There‘s wealth enough, I need no more,
Farewell, my pelf, farewell, my store.
The world no longer let me love,
My hope and treasure lies above.
She pulls herself out of it here, and gives herself a talking to. Her spiritual imperfections are showing. In the previous section, her “My sorrowing eyes aside did cast” toward the house — now her thoughts turn them skyward, to the idea of a heavenly home. “The world no longer let me love” — Don’t let me fixate on what is dust; instead, let me have faith enough to imagine and hope and treasure a new home. In the end, the fire seems to be typologically related to the story of Job’s wife, and rather than lose herself in the tears of nostalgia to be formed into a pillar of salt (type), the speaker says farewell to all that and sets her sights heavenward (interpretation). If you are not religious, chances are you too believe in the idea that you must turn your back on the past to embrace your future.
This reminds me of a famous interview between Stephen Colbert and Anderson Cooper on grief and loss which results in tears for both of them. Colbert says, “what punishments of God are not gifts?” To love your life, to be grateful for your existence, you have to love all of it. Even the hardest parts, even the parts you wish desperately had not happened.
Scholarship is divided on this poem. Feminism has claimed Anne Bradstreet, and with good reason — her poems are desirous and embodied and independent minded. Here is a 1660s housewife with a pen and and interiority. Thank God for the Tenth Muse! And there seems to be in her writing a tantalizing resistance to the patriarchal church, and a refreshing relatability to those of us who struggle. These poems are a reminder that for Anne Bradstreet, as for Anne Hutchinson ( a story for another day), the signs God leaves for his chosen ones were not determined by gender.
Even the worst days in the domestic sphere are sites for religious instruction, for a coming closer to God. No church required. By fully processing this loss and going through the work of self-examination and acceptance, Anne Bradstreet comes closer to peace.