¶ … Burning of Our House -- July 10, 1666
The poem Upon the Burning of Our House -- July 10, 1666 was written by Anne Bradstreet. Bradstreet is considered by many to be America's first authentic poet was born and raised a Puritan. She and her husband, Simon, who she married at the age of eighteen, lived in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Bradstreet composed her poetry while raising eight children and performing her other domestic duties. She only wrote for herself and only shared her writings with family and friends; however her brother-in-law took some of her poems back to England without her knowledge and had them published. In this poem Bradstreet speaks of the lessons she learned from the fire that destroyed her home and her devotion to a higher being.
One of the meanings Bradstreet takes from the fire is that all of her possessions that were burned she...
Therefore, she could not mourn the lost because He had the right to take them away:
"And when I could no longer look;
I blest His name that gave and took,
That laid my goods now in the dust.
Yea, so it was, and so 'twas just.
It was His own, it was not mine,
Far be it that I should repine;" (Lines 13-18).
These lines are an indication of her submission to a higher being and her willingness to define the tragedy that has happened as a reflection of God's will. He had the right to take these things away for they belonged to Him and she should not morn there loss. Bradstreet also asserts that earthly pleasures are temporal. In lines 31-36 she notes that material possessions are as easy to gain as they are to lose:
"No pleasant tale shall…
