Huswifery1 by Edward Taylor Make me, O Lord, Thy spinning wheel complete, Thy holy word my distaff2 make

for me, Make mine affections3 Thy swfit flyers4 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 quills5; Then weave the web Thyself. The yarn is fine. Thine ordinances6 make my fulling mills7. Then dye the same in heavenly colors choice, All pinked8 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.
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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.

QUESTIONS 1. 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? 2. (a) What images in this poem may have contradicted the Puritan requirement that clothing be dark and undecorated? (b) What do these images suggest about the speakers feelings about God? 3. What details in the final two lines convey Taylors belief that religious grace comes as a gift from God? 4. What seems to be the poems overall purpose? 5. What household task or process might Taylor describe if he were writing this poem today?

huswifery - housekeeping distaff - staff on which flax or wool is wound for use in spinning 3 affections - emotions 4 flyers - part of a spinning wheel that twists fibers into yarn 5 quills - weavers spindles or bobbins 6 ordinances - sacraments or religious rites 7 fulling mills - machines that shrink and thicken cloth to the texture of felt; place where raw cloth is cleaned 8 pinked - decorated