My Soul’s Sole Desire

Edited by Leah Knight and Wendy Wall

In this poetic prayer to God, the speaker seeks illumination of her dark soul, with a promise that in the afterlife the speaker will sing songs of praise to God. The title interestingly claims that her soul renounces all other desires, except the wish to join in the plenitude of heavenly light that the speaker associates with the moment of creation. The poem is self-conscious about its own status as a created work and is markedly experimental in its form: its structure, unusual for Pulter, consists of six three-line stanzas, the first two lines of rhymed iambic pentameter and the third a differently rhymed dimeter, with dimeter lines rhyming in sequential stanzas (AAB CCB and so on). The claim to offer simple adoration—to “my God and king”—is complicated by the intricate structure.

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Thou that didst on the chaos1
 move,
Illustrious Spirit2
 of life and love:
O, pity me,

And on my dark soul deign3
 to shine;
Sin, Death, and Hell, will all resign
Their place to Thee.

Then shall my soul’s sad shades of night,
Be turned into meridian4
 light,
Until my story

Begun below, goes on above
In joy, and life, being crowned by love
With endless glory.

Then those unknown celestial lays5
,
Those hallelujahs to Thy praise,
I’ll ever sing;

And Thine immensity implore,
Thy majesty alone adore:
My God and King.