cribes the awakening to the shrieks of dreadful voice and going out to watch the flame consume her dwelling place. But she comforts herself with good Puritan dogma. The burning of the house is Gods doing and his doings should not be questioned. In looking over the stanzas where she lovingly goes over the things that have burnt, it shows that she is actually questioning Gods will. This is a place where we see conflict within her. The questioning is through feeling rather than statement. In the following stanzas she is looking over her things lovingly: When by the Ruins oft I past, My sorrowing eyes aside did cast, And here and there the places spy Where oft I sat, and long did lye, Here stood that Trunk, and here that chest; There lay that store I counted best: My pleasant things in ashes lye, And them behold no more shall I, Under thy roof no guest shall sit, Nor at thy Table eat a bit. No pleasant tale shallere be told, Nor things recounted done of old. No candleere shall shine in Thee, Nor bridegrooms voice ere heard shall be. In the above stanzas it is almost a dialogue between her feelings and dogma. She feels a sense of regret despite the fact that there are reasonable arguments that her goods belonged to God and whatever God does is just. In reading and examining the elegies she wrote for her grandchildren we see a strong feeling of questioning. In these poems she is sharing a strong inclination of self-expression. Her strong sense of personal bereavement is very evident. Unlike when her father died there is no question of the rightness of his death because of his age. The fir...
