To My Dear and Loving Husband

              To My Dear and Loving Husband is a poem written by Anne Bradstreet. This play seems to be about Bradstreet and her husband’s love for each other. The first line says “if ever two were one, the surely we” (Bradstreet).  This line means that if there were ever considered that two people loved each other so much that they became one person, that her husband and her would be that couple. This really shows how important the two mean to each other. The most influential part of the poem that gives an example of how much their love means to her is lines five and six that say “I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold/ or all the riches that the East doth hold” (Bradstreet).  The sad part is that many people prize money more than their husbands and wives. Bradstreet explains that she prizes him more than anything. I think that line seven is very interesting that she used a type of metaphor to describe her love for her husband. This line says “My love is such that rivers cannot quench” (Bradstreet).  It is hard to think of that much love existing between two people. Bradstreet later goes on to say in line nine that “Thy love is such I can no way repay” (Bradstreet).  This line begins to make the readers think about who she is repaying for this love because she has already described how much she loves her husband. Is she repaying God for this strong love in her life or her husband for loving and caring for her so much? The following lines begin to talk about love in relation to heaven. Line ten says “The heavens reward thee manifold. I pray” (Bradstreet).  We learn here that she is probably referring in line nine to repaying her husband. She believes that her husband loves her more than she loves him and she cannot repay him. I got this idea because of line ten saying “heavens reward thee manifold,” which means God will reward all types or various amounts of love for each other (Bradstreet, line 10). Lines eleven and twelve say “Then while we live, in love let’s so preserve/ That when we live not more, we may live ever” (Bradstreet).  These two lines are stating that while they are living and loving, they should conserve their love so that it will last forever, even in heaven after they die. The line twelve really makes the readers think about what Bradstreet is really meaning by “we may live ever” (Bradstreet, line 12).  Does this mean that as long as they love they will live forever or will they still love in heaven forever?  I found there to be little irony in this poem, but I did find line nine, that speaks about not being able to repay his love, ironic because she just describe how much she loved her husband and how much she cared for him. I believe that this poem was truly written about someone that Bradstreet loved because of all the intense metaphors that are included in this poem to describe their love for each other.

Schilb, John, and John Clifford. "To My Dear and Loving Husband." Making Literature Matter: an Anthology for Readers and Writers. 4th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2009. 574-75. Print.