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man of great spiritual passion, of large and liberal learning, enraptured by the Puritan dream to such a degree that he could express it in living song. His success was by no means invariable, but his best poems, a considerable number, justify the position that he at once attained in our literature when in 1939 Thomas H. Johnson published from manuscript a gen erous selection.

Taylor was born in Coventry, England, or nearby, probably in 1645, and most likely in a family of dissenters. Johnson points out that an ardent young Congregationalist was not then welcome at the British universities, and concludes that the persecutions of 1662 confirmed Taylor's resolution to to emigrate. He taught school for a few years, but finally, in July, 1668, he arrived in Boston, seeking liberty and education. He carried letters to Increase Mather, already a prominent clergyman, and to John Hull, the Master of the Mint, the leading capitalist of the colony, and father of Sewall's first wife. The earnest young seeker captured the affections of his hosts-the Mathers became his intimates for life

and in a few days it was arranged for him to be off for Harvard, where he and Samuel Mather, a nephew of Increase, were classmates. He and Sewall were still closer-"Chamberfellows and Bed-fellows," as the latter records, adding that "he *** drew me thither." Quite certainly young Taylor captivated everyone, although his college life was otherwise uneventful, save for some academic dis

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Taylor's manuscript book is in several sections: "God's Determinations," which includes "The Preface" and "The Glory of and Grace in the Church Set Out"; "Miscellaneous Poems," the source of "Huswifery" and "Upon a Spider *** the "Preparatory Meditations," in two series, from which are drawn the remaining poems included in this volume. Never a servile imitator, Taylor was quite evidently acquainted with the serious British poetry of his times, especially the metaphysical poets-such as Donne, Crashaw, and Herbert-and the contemporaries of Milton, who published Paradise Lost the year before young Taylor set out for America. Dr. Samuel Johnson called Donne's poems "metaphysical" in disparagement, but poets of our century have restored them to honor. Readers of the seventeenth-century poets or of Hopkins or Yeats, Eliot or the earlier MacLeish, will recognize Taylor's metaphysical language, in which the extreme extension of an emotion has led to extravagant projection of the figure of speech, or to the asso

ciation of ideas and images under almost unbearable tensions, as in the figure of the spinning wheel of "Huswifery" and in the metaphors of the bird of paradise and the bread of life in "Meditation Eight." Taylor's work was uneven; yet at his best he produced lines and passages of startling vitality, fusing lofty concept and homely detail in the memorable fashion of great poetry. He was a true mystic whose experience still convinces us, and one of the four or five

American Puritans whose writings retain the liveliness of genuine literature.

A judicious selection of Edward Taylor's poems, along with an authoritative biographical sketch, a critical introduction, and notes, may be found in Thomas H. Johnson's edition of The Poetical Works of Edward Taylor, 1939, supplemented in "Some Edward Taylor Gleanings," New England Quarterly, XVI (June, 1943), 280-296, and in "The Topical Verses of Edward Taylor," Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, XXXIV (1943), 513-554. The Poems of Edward Taylor, ed. by Donald E. Stanford, 1960, is the complete, annotated edition. Recent studies by Norman S. Grabo are Edward Taylor, 1962, and Edward Taylor's "Christographia," 1962.

The Preface

Infinity, when all things it beheld
In Nothing, and of Nothing all did build,
Upon what Base was fixt the Lath,1 wherein
He turn'd this Globe, and riggalld2 it so trim?
Who blew the Bellows of his Furnace Vast?
Or held the Mould wherein the world was Cast?
Who laid its Corner Stone? Or whose Command?
Where stand the Pillars upon which it stands?
Who Lac'de and Filletted3 the earth so fine,
With Rivers like green Ribbons Smaragdine?4
Who made the Sea's its Selvedge, and it locks
Like a Quilt Ball within a Silver Box?
Who Spread its Canopy? Or Curtains Spun?
Who in this Bowling Alley bowld the Sun?
Who made it always when it rises set
To go at once both down, and up to get?
Who th'Curtain rods made for this Tapistry?
Who hung the twinckling Lanthorns in the Sky?
Who? who did this? or who is he? Why, know
Its Onely Might Almighty this did doe.

His hand hath made this noble worke which Stands
His Glorious Handywork not made by hands.
Who spake all things from nothing; and with ease

1. Lathe.
2. To make a groove for. Cf. archaic
"regal" or "riggal," a groove or slot for
a moving mechanical member.

3. A filet was a lace mesh often used in
binding women's hair.

4. Emerald green, from the Latin

smaragdus, "emerald."

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5. The woven or finished edge of a fabric.

6. A ball with a cover quilted of small patches of contrasting colors, used as a toy or trinket.

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Can speake all things to nothing, if he please.
Whose Little finger at his pleasure Can
Out mete ten thousand worlds with halfe a Span:
Whose Might Almighty can by half a looks
Root up the rocks and rock the hills by th'roots.
Can take this mighty World up in his hande,
And shake it like a Squitchen9 or a Wand.
Whose single Frown will make the Heavens shake
Like as an aspen leafe the Winde makes quake.
Oh! what a might is this Whose single frown
Doth shake the world as it would shake it down?
Which All from Nothing fet,1 from Nothing, All:
Hath All on Nothing set, lets Nothing fall.
Gave all to nothing Man indeed, whereby
Through nothing man all might him Glorify.
In Nothing then imbosst the brightest Gem
More pretious than all pretiousness in them.
But Nothing man did throw down all by Sin:
And darkened that lightsom Gem in him.
That now his Brightest Diamond is grown
Darker by far than any Coalpit Stone.

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Meditation One

What Love is this of thine, that Cannot bee
In thine Infinity, O Lord, Confinde,
Unless it in thy very Person see,

Infinity, and Finity Conjoyn'd?

What hath thy Godhead, as not satisfide
Marri'de our Manhood, making it its Bride?

Oh, Matchless Love! Filling Heaven to the brim!
O're running it: all running o're beside

This World! Nay Overflowing Hell; wherein
For thine Elect, there rose a mighty Tide!

That there our Veans might through thy Person bleed,
To quench those flames, that else would on us feed.

Oh! that thy Love might overflow my Heart!
To fire the same with Love: for Love I would.

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1682

But oh! my streight'ned3 Breast! my Lifeless Sparke!
My Fireless Flame! What Chilly Love, and Cold?
In measure small! In Manner Chilly! See.
Lord, blow the Coal: Thy Love Enflame in mee.

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The Experience

Canticles I: 3. . . . thy name is as ointment poured forth.“

Oh! that I alwayes breath'd in such an aire,
As I suck't in, feeding on sweet Content!
Disht up unto my Soul ev'n in that pray're

Pour'de out to God over last Sacrament.

What Beam of Light wrapt up my sight to finde
Me neerer God than ere Came in my minde?

Most strange it was! But yet more strange that shine
Which filld my Soul then to the brim to spy

My Nature with thy Nature all Divine

Together joyn'd in Him that's Thou, and I.
Flesh of my Flesh, Bone of my Bone. There's run
Thy Godhead, and my Manhood in thy Son.

Oh! that that Flame which thou didst on me Cast
Might me enflame, and Lighten e[ve]ry where.
Then Heaven to me would be less at last

So much of heaven I should have while here.
Oh! Sweet though Short! Ile not forget the same.
My neerness, Lord, to thee did me Enflame.

I'le Claim my Right: Give place, ye Angells Bright
Ye further from the Godhead stande than I.
My Nature is your Lord; and doth Unite

Better than Yours unto the Deity.
Gods Throne is first and mine is next: to you
Onely the place of Waiting-men is due.

Oh! that my Heart, thy Golden Harp might bee
Well tun'd by Glorious Grace, that e'ry string
Screw'd to the highest pitch, might unto thee
All Praises wrapt in sweetest Musick bring.

3. I.e., straightened, here meaning "con-
stricted."

4. These words occur in the Song of Solomon, a song of the union of lovers. Taylor employs a similar language of

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passion in describing the experience of the Puritan "regeneration," a union of "sanctified" man with God. See especially 11. 7-18.

I praise thee, Lord, and better praise thee would
If what I had, my heart might ever hold.

1682-1683

Huswifery

Make me, O Lord, thy Spin[n]ing Wheele compleate.
Thy Holy Worde my Distaff make for mee.
Make mine Affections thy Swift Flyers neate
And make my Soule thy holy Spoole to bee.
My Conversation make to be thy Reele5
And reele the yarn thereon spun of thy Wheele.

Make me thy Loome then, knit therein this Twine:
And make thy Holy Spirit, Lord, winde quills:6
Then weave the Web thyselfe. The yarn is fine.
Thine Ordinances make my Fulling Mills.7
Then dy the same in Heavenly Colours Choice,
All pinktR with varnisht Flowers of Paradise.

fill

Then cloath therewith mine Understanding, Will,
Affections, Judgment, Conscience, Memory
My Words, and Actions, that their shine may
My wayes with glory and thee glorify.
Then mine apparell shall display before yee
That I am Cloathd in Holy robes for glory.

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1939

Meditation Eight

John VI: 51. I am the living bread.1

I ken[n]ing2 through Astronomy Divine
The Worlds bright Battlement, wherein I spy
A Golden Path my Pensill cannot line,

From that bright Throne unto my Threshold ly.
And while my puzzled thoughts about it pore,
I finde the Bread of Life in't at my doore.

5. Among the parts of a spinning wheel,
the distaff holds the raw wool or flax,
the flyers regulate the spinning, the
spool twists the yarn, and the reel re-
ceives the finished thread.

6. The spools of a loom.

7. Mills in which the cloth is cleansed with fuller's earth or soap.

8. I.e., pinked, meaning "ornamented." 9. Here meaning "lustrous," "glossy."

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1. In II. 21-36 the poet elaborates the passage: "I am the living bread which came down out of heaven; if any man eat of this bread he shall live forever," in support of the doctrine of grace, the New Covenant between God and Adam's fallen children.

2. Recognizing, knowing.

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