“To My Dear and Loving Husband” is a lyric poem by Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672), most likely written during the early 1640s. Intimate and autobiographical, the poem directly addresses the poet’s husband, Simon Bradstreet, praising their mutual love and the depth of their companionship. The poem both exemplifies Bradstreet’s ideas about matrimony and epitomizes American women’s writing in the 17th century.

Bradstreet attracted some critical and public notice during her lifetime after publishing her poetry collection The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung up in America in 1650. However, many of her most famous poems were unprinted until her posthumous collection Several Poems Compiled with Great Variety of Wit and Learning (1678). “To My Dear and Loving Husband” appeared in the latter collection, alongside other lyric poems centered upon family, love, and faith.

Poet Biography

Although now closely associated with the birth of early American poetry, Anne Dudley was born in Northampton, England, on March 8, 1612. Her parents, Thomas and Dorothy Dudley, were both devout Puritans. Her father was a steward on the estate of the Earl of Lincoln, enabling Anne to grow up in considerable financial comfort and stability. Anne married Simon Bradstreet in 1628 and would later become known as a writer under her married name. The couple had eight children over two decades, with seven surviving into adulthood.

Two years after her marriage, she emigrated with her husband and her parents to Massachusetts to join one of the new Puritan settlements in what is now the United States. They sailed aboard the Arabella, arriving in America in July 1630. Their first few years in America were difficult due to these early settlements’ rudimentary conditions and chronic lack of food and resources. They moved several times to different Puritan colonies within Massachusetts before settling down in North Andover in 1645. The couple established themselves in a comfortable home and became closely intertwined with their local community, with Bradstreet’s husband even serving as Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony after her death.

Although Bradstreet lived at a time when educated women were still something of a rarity, she had received an excellent education while growing up on the Earl of Lincoln’s estate. With her father’s support, Bradstreet became an avid reader from a young age, becoming familiar with both the classics of Greece and Rome as well as the most famous writers from the “Golden Age” of Elizabethan England. By 1632, at the age of 19, she had begun writing poetry of her own. In 1650, a collection entitled The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung up in America appeared in print on both sides of the Atlantic, bringing Bradstreet a degree of public notice and admiration for her verse. It is the first poetry collection published by a female writer in America.

Many of Bradstreet’s most personal lyric poems were unpublished until after her death, when an expanded collection, Several Poems Compiled with Great Variety of Wit, was released in 1678. These intimate lyrics provide valuable insight into the emotional, social, and spiritual realities of a Puritan woman in the 17th century, with Bradstreet openly broaching such topics as her love and desire for her husband, her attachment to her children, and even her occasional fears of illness and childbirth. Some poems also express the depth and complexity of her religious faith, reflecting both her moments of ambivalence and her eagerness to form a close personal communion with God.

After a long bout of illness, Bradstreet died on September 16, 1672, at home in Massachusetts. She was 60 years old. While there is some confusion in locating her original gravesite, a commemorative grave marker was installed in the North Andover cemetery in 2000 to honor her legacy. Bradstreet remains an important figure in the history of American letters, both as a voice of the early Puritan experience and as a pioneer of women’s writing more generally.

Poem Text

If ever two were one, then surely we.

If ever man were loved by wife, then thee.

If ever wife was happy in a man,

Compare with me, ye women, if you can.

I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold,

Or all the riches that the East doth hold.

My love is such that rivers cannot quench,

Nor ought but love from thee give recompense.

Thy love is such I can no way repay;

The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.

Then while we live, in love let’s so persever,

That when we live no more, we may live ever.

Bradstreet, Anne. “To My Dear and Loving Husband.” 1678. Poetry Foundation.

Summary

“To My Dear and Loving Husband” expresses Bradstreet’s love and commitment to her husband, Simon, by addressing him directly. The poem opens with a series of statements reflecting upon the deep and passionate reciprocity in their marriage, emphasizing the mutual and equal nature of the spousal affections. The speaker then describes how limitless and priceless their love is, claiming that it is worth more than all earthly riches. She also describes love as sufficient unto itself, as something that can be satisfied only by more love. Confessing that she feels she could never repay her husband for all his love, she calls upon heaven to reward him amply instead. The poem closes with the speaker urging her husband to join her in continually nurturing their companionship so that the integrity of their marital bond and faith will ensure their salvation after death.