In Edward Taylor's "Meditation 42," the speaker employs a tone of both desire and anxiousness in order to convey the overall idea that man's sinful nature and spiritual unworthiness require God's grace and forgiveness to gain entrance to the kingdom of heaven.

In the opening stanza, the speaker describes the human craving and longing for material objects. From the very first word of "Meditation 42," a sense of longing and desire infuses the poem as "apples" (ll. 1) often symbolize both temptation and desire. Because Eve allowed the lure of attaining the God's knowledge to overtake her in the book of Genesis, she bites from a fruit on the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil which is commonly depicted as an apple. In addition, because the "apples" allude to man's fall from paradise they thereby represent man's imperfection and sinful nature. Furthermore, the fact that "apples of gold in...