In My Solitary Hours in My Dear Husband his Absence

An Electronic Edition · Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672)

Original Source: The Works of Anne Bradstreet in Prose and Verse. Edited by John Harvard Ellis. (Charlestown: A. E. Cutter, 1867)

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

Full Colophon Information


In my Solitary houres in my dear husband his Absence.

O LORD, thou hear’st my dayly moan,1.
And see’st my dropping teares: 
My Troubles All are Thee before,3.
My Longings and my feares. 

Thou hetherto hast been my God;5.
Thy help my soul hath found: 
Tho: losse and sicknes me assail’d,7.
Thro: the I’ve kept my Ground. 

And thy Abode tho’ft made with me;9.
With Thee my Soul can talk 
In secrett places, Thee I find,11.
Where I doe kneel or walk. 

Tho: husband dear bee from me gone,13.
Whom I doe love so well; 
I have a more beloved one15.
Whose comforts far excell. 

O stay my heart on thee, my God,17.
Uphold my fainting Soul! 
And, when I know not what to doe,19.
I’ll on thy mercyes roll. 

My weaknes, thou do’st know full well,21.
Of Body and of mind. 
I, in this world, no comfort have,23.
But what from Thee I find. 

Tho: children thou hast given me,25.
And freinds I have also: 
Yet, if I see Thee not thro: them,27.
They are no Joy, but woe. 

O shine upon me, blessed Lord,29.
Ev’n for my Saviour’s sake; 
In Thee Alone is more then All,31.
And there content I’ll take. 

O hear me, Lord, in this Request,33.
As thou before ha’st done: 
Bring back my husband, I beseech,35.
As thou didst once my Sonne. 

So shall I celebrate thy Praise,37.
Ev’n while my Dayes shall last; 
And talk to my Beloved one39.
Of all thy Goodness past. 

So both of us thy Kindness, Lord,41.
With Praises shall recount, 
And serve Thee better then before,43.
Whose Blessings thus surmount. 

But give me, Lord, a better heart,45.
Then better shall I bee, 
To pay the vowes which I doe owe47.
For ever unto Thee. 

Unlesse thou help, what can I doe49.
But still my frailty show? 
If thou assist me, Lord, I shall51.
Return Thee what I owe. 

Full Colophon Information

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

This text was first published in 1650 in The Tenth Muse lately sprung up in America.

This electronic text was prepared from and proofed against The Works of Anne Bradstreet in Prose and Verse. Edited by John Harvard Ellis. (Charlestown: A. E. Cutter, 1867). All preliminaries and notes have been omitted except those for which the author is responsible and those in which editorial notes indicate significant textual variations. All editorial notes have been omitted except for those which 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.