[Untitled]

Edited by Lara Dodds

This poem describes a speaker who longs to be released from the “darkness” of her earthly situation. As in several other poems, the contrast between the speaker’s current and desired state is figured by an opposition between night and day and/or darkness and light. Whereas in some poems (e.g., To Aurora[1]22) the speaker addresses Aurora as a mediating figure between light and darkness, this poem enjoins God directly and offers her own verse as recompense for His decision to free her. She promises to praise God for eternity in “unknown lays,” a complex phrase that draws attention to the experimental form of this poem (8 stanzas of tercets; see also My Soul’s Sole Desire29 and Dear God, from Thy High Throne Look Down63) and opens meta-poetic questions about how Pulter imagined the nature of poetry and the audience for her work.

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How long shall my dejected soul,
(Dear God) in dust1
 and darkness roll,
Without one ray

Of thy eternal love and light
To conquer these sad shades of night?
That endless day

In my forsaken soul may shine,
The hallelujah2
 shall be thine;
Oh then look down

Upon a ruined heap of dust,
Slave to those tyrants, Death and Lust3
;
My hopes, Oh crown4
.

My God vouchsafe to enfranchise me.
Let me no more a vassal be
To sin and pain.

These vanities I fain would leave,
Oh then my weary soul receive,
With Thee to reign

In those celestial joys above,
Involved with glory, life and love,
And then Thy praise

22(My everlasting God and King)

23To all eternity I’ll sing

24In

unknown lays5