To My Dear and Loving Husband, by Anne Bradstreet is a beautiful poem which seems to be in dedication to her husband which is obvious by the title. To me, her words are a beautiful representation of what a marriage should feel like. It is clear by her words in lines 5-7, “I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold/Or all the riches that the East doth hold/My love is such that rivers cannot quench” (Bradstreet, 5-7), that she has an immensely deep love for her husband, so deep that no such thing can compare. This is a love that I have witnessed only once in my life by my grandparents. My grandparents, now 52 years married, much like Bradstreet, feel that through their love, they will live on forever, even after death. That is a comment they made in their 50th wedding anniversary celebration. Bradstreet makes that point when she writes “Then while we live, in love let’s no persevere/That when we live no more, we may live ever” (Bradstreet, 12). Those words, much like these, resonate in my head when I think of true love. I hope to one day feel so deeply towards a person that these words won’t be just words, but emotions that I can relate to. For myself and my whole family, my grandparents are the epitome of true love and I feel grateful to them, because in spite of the fact that I’ve been hurt by love, I am able to see through them, and people like Bradstreet, that true love is attainable.
On Being Brought from Africa to America, by Phillis Wheatley is very touching to me because despite the reality of her situation—being brought from Africa to America for slavery—she has chosen not to speak of the hardships, but in the beauty she found within her hardships. This tone is apparent in line 1, “’Twas mercy brought me from my pagan land” (Wheatley, 1), when she describes her being brought to America for slavery as ‘mercy’. In this poem, Wheatley
