Oh! joyous hearts! Enfired with holy flame! Is speech thus tasseled with praise? Will not your inward fire of joy contain That it in open flames doth blaze? For in Christ’s coach saints sweetly sing, As they to glory ride therein. And if a string do slip, by chance, they soon Do screw it up again: whereby They set it in a more melodious tune And a diviner harmony. For in Christ’s coach they sweetly sing, As they to glory ride therein. In all their acts, public and private, nay, And secret too, they praise impart. But in their acts divine and worship, they With hymns do offer up their heart. Thus in Christ’s coach they sweetly sing, As they to glory ride therein. Some few not in, and some whose time and place Block up this coach’s way, do go As travelers afoot: and so do trace The road that gives them right thereto; While in this coach these sweetly sing, As they to glory ride therein. Next, Taylor’s great love of God is expressed in a beautiful figure of speech in which the poet wants God to use him as a housewife uses wool to make yarn and yarn to make cloth. In the first stanza, he asks God to make him into a spinning wheel, of which the flyers, distaff, spool, and reel all are parts. In the second stanza, Taylor wants to be a loom on which God can weave holy robes. A fulling mill is a place where cloth is dyed. Finally, the poet wants God to clothe him in the holy robes made on this imaginary loom. This poem is a highly original way to ask God to give one faith, love, and understanding. You should consider it a prayer. Housewifery Make me, O Lord, Thy spinning-wheel complete; Thy holy Word my distaff make for me; Make mine affections Thy swift flyers neat; And make my soul Thy holy spool to be; My conversation make to be Thy reel, And reel the yarn thereon, spun of Thy wheel. Make me Thy loom then; knit therein this twine; And make Thy Holy Spirit, Lord, wind quills; Then weave the web Thyself. The yarn is fine. Thine ordinances make my fulling mills. Then dye the same in heavenly colors choice, All pinked with varnished flowers of paradise. Then clothe therewith mine understanding, will, Affections, judgment, conscience, memory, My words and actions, that their shine may fill My ways with glory and Thee glorify. Then mine apparel shall display before Ye That I am clothed in holy robes for glory. The Salem Witch Trials