Address to the Soul Occasioned by a Rain

An Electronic Edition · Edward Taylor (1642-1729)

Original Source: The poetical works of Edward Taylor. Edited with an introduction and notes by Thomas H. Johnson. New York, Rockland editions, 1939.

Copyright 2003. This text is freely available provided the text is distributed with the header information provided.

Full Colophon Information


An Address to the Soul Occasioned by a Rain

Ye Flippering Soule,  
Why dost between the Nippers dwell?  
Not stay, nor goe. Not yea, nor yet Controle.  
Doth this doe well?  
Rise journy’ng when the skies fall weeping Showers, 5.
Not o’re nor under th’ Clouds and Cloudy Powers. 

Not yea, nor noe:  
On tiptoes thus? Why sit on thorns?  
Resolve the matter: Stay thyselfe or goe:  
Ben’t both wayes born.  
Wager thyselfe against thy surplic’de see, 5.
And win thy Coate, or let thy Coate win thee. 

Is this th’ Effect  
To leaven thus my Spirits all?  
To make my heart a Crabtree Cask direct?  
A Verjue’te Hall?  
As Bottle Ale, whose Spirits prison’d must 5.
When jogg’d, the bung with Violence doth burst? 

Shall I be made  
A sparkling Wildfire Shop,  
Where my dull Spirits at the Fireball trade  
Do frisk and hop?  
And while the Hammer doth the Anvill pay, 5.
The fire ball matter sparkles ev’ry way. 

One sorry fret,  
An anvill Sparke, rose higher,  
And in thy Temple falling, almost set  
The house on fire.  
Such fireballs dropping in the Temple Flame 5.
Burns up the building: Lord, forbid the same. 

Full Colophon Information

Genre: Poetry
Subjects: Puritans
Period: 1650-1700
Location: New England
Format: verse

This poem was completed ca. 1685. However, it not published until 1939 in New York.

The text of the present edition was initially prepared from and proofed against The poetical works of Edward Taylor. Edited with an introduction and notes by Thomas H. Johnson (New York, Rockland editions, 1939). All preliminaries and notes have been omitted except those for which the author is responsible. All editorial notes have been omitted except those that indicate significant textual variations. Line and paragraph numbers contained in the source text have been retained. In cases where the source text displays no numbers, numbers are automatically generated. In the header, personal names have been regularized according to the Library of Congress authority files as "Last Name, First Name" for the REG attribute and "First Name Last Name" for the element value. Names have not been regularized in the body of the text.