ABSTRACT
Anne Bradstreet’s poems were first published in England in 1650 by her brother-in-law in a volume titled The Tenth Muse, Lately Sprung Up in America. She wrote the poems as personal refl ections on family and religion, intending that they would be shared only with her family-her husband and children. As can be seen in the following selections, she was especially concerned with and anguished over the wellbeing of her children and the hardships of home life in colonial New England. In “ Before the Birth of One of My Children,” Bradstreet reveals inner fears that permeate her verses: Life is precarious and precious; death is inevitable. Bradstreet gives life to her children and leaves them her poetry as her legacy.
