Verses upon the Burning of our House

To say in the poem, as well as within the cultural mindset of the Puritan settlement, that God is important is to understate the Puritan faith in the absolute power of God.

For the Puritans, God is not just the creator-deity, nor some distant occasionally intervening divinity. God, within the Puritan mindset, is not just part of everything; God is everything. Every element of the material universe exists at the will of God and is in fact a manifestation of the spirit and generosity of God and does not require humanity’s assent to exist. Every turn of events reflects God’s will. Indeed, the word “God” is simply the word Puritans used for what surpasses the power of language to understand.

At the moment of critical awareness, knowing she is to lose everything to the fire, Bradstreet’s heart cries out to her God—not to curse God like some misguided Job but rather to thank God for reminding her in this dramatic fashion the promise of a home after death, a home that is permanent and true. The fire that destroys virtually all of the Bradstreet family’s belongings, secured across more than 20 years against the difficult conditions in wilderness Massachusetts, becomes an occasion for worshipful prayer as Bradstreet moves from selfish despair as she watches her home go up in flames, to her closing radiant vision of confident hope.