A real sense of calm pervades Bradstreet’s poetry. She has genuine affection for the things she writes about, whether that be family, or the vistas of nature, or her husband, or the “pleasant things” lost in the house fire, and so in no way does she come across as a pinched ascetic. But neither does she come across as someone who is in frantic pursuit of worldly goods.

Anne Bradstreet came to fame when someone published her poetry as The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America. Anne Bradstreet was a Puritan who had crossed the ocean to help found the new colony in America. She lived on the frontier and lived a fairly uneventful life loving her husband and children. However, she was also a well-educated and imaginative woman whose poetry continues to be admired to this day. This collection of her poems is a forgotten classic that we would be well advised to read.