wants to be the loom on which the yarn is taken
further through the process. In both metaphors,
the speaker sees himself as a piece of equipment
unable to function on its own, rather needing
someone with the necessary skills to come and
put him to good use. Finally, the speaker looks
forward to being clothed in the strikingly beau-
tiful garment. Throughout, the speaker’s desire
is not for his own greatness or importance but
to glorify God in his time on earth and then
in death, when he shall be worthy of entering
God’s kingdom.
David’s Psalm 23 employs the motif of a
sheep and a shepherd. The speaker is a mere
sheep, wholly dependent on the Lord, his shep-
herd. Whereas Taylor’s speaker asks to be the
object in his metaphor, David already is the
object in his metaphor. This difference is subtle,
but it affects the tone of the poem. David trusts
the shepherd completely, knowing that the shep-
herd is his source of provision, safety, and peace.
He acknowledges that the shepherd keeps him
on the right path for the sake of the shepherd’s
name. David goes so far as to say that staying
close to the shepherd keeps him safe from his
enemies, so safe that he is not afraid. He is com-
forted by the shepherd’s tools (rod and staff), and
his soul is so full of blessings and righteousness
from being near the shepherd that he says his cup
overflows. The psalm is rich with imagery and
metaphor, even beyond the primary metaphor of
the sheep and the shepherd. David refers to fear-
ing mortality as a shadowy valley of death. He
also describes the Lord setting a table for the
speaker in front of his enemies, a visual expres-
sion of what it must be like for the speaker to feel
God’s favor over his enemies. The image of the
overflowing cup is another well-known metaphor
that depicts the speaker’s experience of God’s
blessings. At the very end, David proclaims that
he will live in the Lord’s house forever, another
metaphor describing eternity and heaven.
Both Taylor and David use imagery related
to an activity that was common in their com-
munities. Taylor relies on the reader’s under-
standing of the domestic activity of weaving to
understand the imagery in his poem. The termsBOTH POETS USE A SET OF ORDINARY
IMAGES TO RELATE THEOLOGICAL TRUTHS AND TO
EXPRESS THEIR DESIRE TO BE UNDER THE
AUTHORITY OF GOD.’’WHAT
DO I READ
NEXT? Elizabeth Wayland Barber’s 1995 book
Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years;
Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times
provides historical and pictorial informa-
tion about the history of spinning yarn and
weaving cloth on looms all over the world.
She looks at the history of the equipment
and the process to reveal to today’s ready-
to-wear generation what kind of work went
into making clothes for one’s family.
The Poems of Edward Taylor: A Reference
Guide(2003), edited by Rosemary Fithian
Guruswamy, is a single volume containing
Taylor’s poetry along with biographical, his-
torical, theological, and literary commen-
tary to help the reader better understand
the poems, the poet, and his times.
Edited by David D. Hall,Puritans in the
New World: A Critical Anthology (2004)
presents the Puritan experience in the words
of the Puritans themselves. Well-known
writers such as Anne Bradstreet and Jona-
than Edwards are featured, alongside the
writings of religious dissenters of the time, a
narrative of a converted Native American,
and descriptions of experiences by laypeople.
Errand into the Wilderness(1956), by Perry
Miller, is a historical exploration into the
minds and motivations of the Puritans who
journeyed to America (as Edwards did) in
search of something they could not find at
home. Facing numerous challenges, the
Puritans were strong minded and individu-
alistic, and Perry’s account of their culture is
often referred to as a counterbalance to the
view of Puritans as rigid and unfeeling.Huswifery