Author Biography
A minister and a poet, Edward Taylor is regarded
as one of the most important voices of early
American literature. Only a few stanzas of his
poetry were published in his lifetime, but more
of his poems and sermons as well were published
in the twentieth century. Since then, their worth
to history and literature has secured Taylor’s
place in American letters.
As best historians can tell, Taylor was born
to Margaret and William (a prosperous farmer)
in 1642 in Sketchley, Leicestershire, England.
Margaret died in 1657, and William died the
following year. Taylor continued his schooling
and even worked as a teacher for a short period
of time. As a staunch Protestant dissenter, he
encountered political troubles during the Refor-
mation, preventing him from being a teacher or
worshipping as he pleased. Consequently, on
April 26, 1668, Taylor set sail for the Massachu-
setts Bay Colony.
After seventy days at sea, Taylor arrived in
Boston, where he was admitted to Harvard Col-
lege as an upperclassman and even given a kitchen
job on campus. Taylor roomed with Samuel Sew-
all, who would be the presiding judge at the Salem
witch trials. Although Taylor’s poetry from this
time is not accredited much literary value, it does
show his developing voice and his early interest in
the form.
After graduating in 1671, Taylor was encour-
aged by Increase Mather to accept an offer to be
a minister in a western Massachusetts farming
community called Westfield. Although it was win-
ter, Taylor journeyed a hundred miles in inclement
weather to his new congregation. Within a few
years, Taylor had a parsonage and a meeting
house that additionally served as a fort against
Indian attacks. On November 5, 1674, Taylor
married Elizabeth Fitch. The couple had eight
children, only three of whom survived infancy.
Once his life was established and he had
safely led his community through a war with the
Indians, Taylor resumed writing poetry around
- His efforts at this point—both poems and
sermons—demonstrate more maturity and disci-
pline than did his previous work in college and in
wooing Elizabeth. Some of his poems express
themes of spiritual warfare, salvation, grace, and
Calvinism. Other poetry is occasional, as when he
wrote about a flood, or observational and medi-
tative, as when he wrote about a spider catching
a fly. ‘‘Huswifery’’ fits into this latter category.
From 1682 to 1725, Taylor worked on a massive
two-hundred-poem collection titledPreparatory
Meditations before My Approach to the Lord’s
Supper. The collection reads as a sort of spiritual
diary and was not published until the twentieth
century; although scholars find the verse uneven
and a bit repetitive, they agree that this collection
gives important insight into the colonial mindset
and way of life. A few of the poems are catego-
rized with the metaphysical poetry of the time.
On July 7, 1689, Elizabeth died. Taylor mar-
ried Ruth Wyllys on June 6, 1692, and she bore
six children. Over the years, Taylor continued to
write poetry with fervent spiritual themes and
theological explorations. He was involved in
doctrinal disagreements of the time, having a
particular dislike of the Quakers. He was also
stern with his congregation, and his discipline
even caused occasional uprisings, which he put
down. Taylor’s health gradually declined, and in
January 1721 he wrote a poem bidding farewell
to the physical world. Poetry had become for
him such a natural form of personal expression,
he wrote it to the very end. He died on June 24,
1729, and was buried in Westfield, where his
gravestone still stands.Poem Text
Stanza 1
From the beginning of this meditative poem, the
speaker’s desire to be used in God’s service is
clear. He uses an extended metaphor of weaving
to express his servitude to the Lord, beginning
with the spinning wheel image, then considering
the loom, and finally describing the garment
made from the cloth. In the first stanza, the
speaker asks the Lord to make him a spinning
wheel in the Lord’s service. The distaff is the part
of the spinning wheel that holds the wool in place
so that it can be run through the wheel and spun
into yarn or thread. He specifically asks that
scripture be this distaff, the steady tool that
holds the thread. The speaker acknowledges his
own human traits and failings as he describes
certain parts of the spinning wheel in human
terms. The flyers, for instance (which turn so
that they can twist threads into heavier yarn for
weaving and then wind it onto the bobbin), are
likened to the speaker’s affections. This is a
revealing comment about the speaker’s self-Huswifery