SOURCE: "The Creative Fall of Bradstreet and Dickinson," in Essays in Literature, Vol. XIV, No. 1, Spring 1987, pp. 81–91.

Here, Hesford argues that Bradstreet finds her deepest inspiration in the autumn season and in intimations of mortality.

Applying a Calvinistic misreading of a biblical lesson, Bradstreet explains why stability must elude us in this life:

All the comforts of this life may be compared to the gourd of Jonah, that notwithstanding we take great delight for a season in them and find their shadow very comfortable, yet there is some worm or other, of discontent, of fear, or grief that lies at the root, which in great part withers the pleasure which else we should take in them, and well it is that we perceive a decay in their greenness, for were earthly comforts permanent, who would look for heavenly? ("Meditations Divine and Moral," #69)

In the Book of Jonah, the...