Lyssa Henry

As I discovered this week in one of my Literature classes, it is so easy for people to interpret the same piece of writing in many different ways. The example I have right on hand is Edward Taylor’s poem, “Upon Wedlock, And Death Of Children.” I do not have the responses of my peers, but I know that my interpretation of this poem was different than at least that of my professor.

My first thoughts on the poem upon reading it came directly from the title, so I began reading this piece looking for ways to connect what Taylor was saying to wedlock and children. This proved to be, in my mind, very simple. In the first stanza, Taylor said, “It was the True-Love Knot, more sweet than spice / And set with all the flowres of Graces dress.” To me, this knot represented his wife, possibly wearing something with flowers on it, but almost definitely in love and consummating their marriage. When interpreting the poem in such a way that it seems to be talking about procreation, this work could be seen as slightly vulgar, but when you get past the fact that two married people created children, (shocking, I know) the poem is tasteful enough to explain how the children appeared and what happened next.

In Taylor’s narrative, the next thing that happens is the birth of twins. The first was a boy and the second a girl, but the girl did not survive. The birth of the children came in the third stanza where Taylor said, “When in this Knot I planted was, my Stock / Soon knotted, and a manly flower out brake. / And after it my branch again did knot / Brought out another Flowre its sweet breath’d mate.” This is saying that he impregnated his wife and soon she produced a “manly flower,” which was the boy. When that was over, his wife also gave birth to a friend for his son, but since he referred to the second child as “sweet breath’d,” I took that to mean it was a girl. How did I know that the girl died, though? The next stanza said, not in these words, that the second child was taken to heaven and almost brought the mother with it but did not succeed. They sent it away praying to Christ for it, but Taylor would not give up hope because he was sure that he would someday be reunited with his daughter.

Taylor’s wife had two more children, these two were not twins but were born in the same order, a boy and then a girl. The older child, the boy, did not survive long. After six weeks of sickness and fever, he died. This broke Taylor’s heart, but he did not dismay, for he knew that there was always a reason behind what God was doing. Part of losing his children felt to him like losing pieces of his soul, but he knew they were going to heaven. Taylor knew that God was choosing specifically what children to take earlier and which to allow to grow up, which was evident in the last two lines of the poem when he said, “I joy, may I sweet Flowers for Glory breed, / Whether thou getst them green, or lets them seed.”

This poem was a beautiful narrative about not losing hope when the worst kinds of things happen to people, and that is one thing I think most who read it would be able to agree on. Losing a child has never been said to be easy, but Taylor knew that God had a plan, so he did not let the pain of that happening take control of his life and continued to trust in God.