Name ___________________________________________________
Pd ____
Date _______
Anne Bradstreet
Based on what you have read so far, what do you feel the “essential” Puritan beliefs are?



Thinking Critically
1. In this poem, Bradstreet first narrates an incident and then moves on to draw conclusions from
it. What do you think is the turning point of the poem?
_______________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________
2. Where does Bradstreet get the inner strength to face the loss of her house? How do you think
someone today would deal with the same situation?
_______________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________
3. Bradstreet speaks of another “house” using an extended metaphor. What is this house, who is
the architect, and how is it better than the house she has lost?
_______________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________
4. Pelf – a word designating riches or worldly goods – is usually used in a negative way. Why do
you think Bradstreet uses such a bitter word to describe her cherished possessions?
_______________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________
Identify three lessons that Bradstreet wants people to learn from her poem “Here Follow…”
Identify specific lines/quotes that support your response.
Lesson
Support
In Memory of My Dear Grandchild Elizabeth Bradstreet, Who Deceased August, 1664, Being a Year
and Half Old
Farewell dear babe, my heart's too much content,
Farewell sweet babe, the pleasure of mine eye,
Farewell fair flower that for a space was lent,
Then ta'en away unto eternity.
Blest babe why should I once bewail thy fate,
Or sigh the days so soon were terminate;
Sith thou art settle in an everlasting state.
By nature trees do rot when they are grown.
And plums and apples throughly ripe do fall,
And corn and grass are in their season mown,
And time brings down what is both strong and tall.
But plants new set to be eradicate,
And buds new blown, to have so short a date,
Is by His hand alone that guides nature and fate.
--Anne Bradstreet, 1678
In Memory of My Dear Grandchild Anne Bradstreet, Who Deceased June 39, 1669, Being Three Years
and Seven Months Old
WIth troubled heart & trembling hand I write,
The Heavens have chang'd to sorrow my delight.
How oft with disappointment have I met,
When I on fading things my hopes have set?
Experience might 'fore this have made me wise
To value things according to their price:
Was ever stable joy yet found below?
Or perfect bliss without mixture of woe.
I knew she was but as a withering flour,
That's here to day, perhaps gone in an hour;
Like as a bubble, or the brittle glass,
Or like a shadow turning as it was.
More fool then I to look on that was lent,
As if mine own, when thus impermanent.
Farewel dear child, thou ne're shall come to me,
But yet a while, and I shall go to thee;
Mean time my throbbing heart's chear'd up with this
Thou with thy Savior art in endless bliss.
--Anne Bradstreet, 1678
,5.
10.
15