Editorial note
The aim of the elemental edition is to make the poems accessible to the largest variety of readers, which involves modernizing spelling and punctuation as well as adding basic glosses. Spelling and punctuation reflect current standard American usage; punctuation highlights syntax which might otherwise be obscure. Outmoded but still familiar word forms (“thou,” “‘tis,” “hold’st”) are not modernized, and we do not modernize grammar when the sense remains legible. After a brief headnote aimed at offering a “way in” to the poem’s unique qualities and connections with other verse by Pulter or her contemporaries, the edition features a minimum of notes and interpretative framing to allow more immediate engagement with the poem. Glosses clarify synonyms or showcase various possible meanings in Pulter’s time. Other notes identify named people and places or clarify obscure material. We rely (without citation) primarily on the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), the Oxford Reference database, and the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible. When we rely on Alice Eardley’s edition of Pulter’s work, we cite her text generally (“Eardley”); other sources are cited in full. The result is an edition we consider a springboard for further work on Pulter’s poetry. See full conventions for this edition here.
Headnote
Beginning and ending with questions, the speaker in this poem grapples emotionally with the quandary of being both immaterial soul and mortal flesh. What begins as the speaker’s encouragement to her soul to ambitiously look past the ephemeral pleasures of the natural and finite world turns, by the end of this verse, into a desperate longing to be reunited with her loved ones and with God in heaven. Between these two rhetorical stances, the speaker belies her attraction to the sensual beauty of the landscape, as if trying to convince herself to disavow the joys she occasionally feels (“Then what’s this world we keep ado about?”). She also abruptly disrupts her wise self-counsel to confess a deep fear of death, of transforming into mere dust and ashes. Pulter’s inventive staging of the conventional Renaissance poetic debate between body and soul contrasts the transience and filth of the “dunghill earth” with the expansive flight of the soul into a paradisal heaven vividly imagined as celestial, sovereign and musical.Line number 2
Gloss note
move in cycles; move in an unsteady manner; rotate, turn, or pivot around; trust in God; wallowLine number 5
Gloss note
Christian deity; see John 8:12: “Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.”Line number 10
Gloss note
featherLine number 12
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pile of excrementLine number 14
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convincedLine number 15
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health-givingLine number 16
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ripplingLine number 16
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streamsLine number 19
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fussingLine number 24
Gloss note
Seven of Pulter’s children had died by 1655.Line number 28
Gloss note
unsullied, chasteLine number 29
Gloss note
places where the Earth’s axes meet the celestial sphereLine number 30
Gloss note
her children’s desires have been met in heaven Sorry, but there are no notes associated with
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