Anne Bradstreet

To Her Father with Some Verses

Most truly honoured, and as truly dear,
If worth in me or ought I do appear,
Who can of right better demand the same
Than may your worthy self from whom it came?

Financial language

Bradstreet shifts from personal gratitude into accounting terms: 'principal,' 'sum,' 'stock,' 'bond,' 'debt,' 'payment.' She's treating filial obligation as a literal unpayable loan, which makes the poem's emotional weight mathematical.

The principal might yield a greater sum,
Yet handled ill, amounts but to this crumb;
My stock's so small I know not how to pay,
My bond remains in force unto this day;
Yet for part payment take this simple mite,
Where nothing's to be had, kings loose their right.

Kings and right

This legal maxim—that even kings forfeit their claims when nothing exists to claim—inverts power. Bradstreet uses it to explain why her meager gift is still valid. The phrase acknowledges her low social position while paradoxically making it logically sound.

Such is my debt I may not say forgive,
But as I can, I'll pay it while I live;
Such is my bond, none can discharge but I,

Perpetual debt

The volta here: she can't discharge her obligation, only she can pay it, and payment remains incomplete until death. This redefines debt from transaction to lifelong condition—a daughter's duty as endless as life itself.

Yet paying is not paid until I die.
Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

Debt as Filial Duty

Bradstreet frames her gift of verses as payment on an unpayable debt to her father. She opens with formal address ('Most truly honoured') and immediately establishes that any worth she possesses comes from him—the 'principal' that generated her. The poem isn't actually about the verses themselves; it's about the logical impossibility of repaying what a child owes a parent.

The genius is in her use of financial language to make an emotional claim seem mathematically rigorous. A 'bond' that 'remains in force,' 'stock' that's insufficient, a 'mite' offered where 'nothing's to be had'—these aren't metaphors she's being cute with. She's arguing that filial debt operates under different rules than commerce. Kings lose their right to collect when nothing exists; therefore, her small offering is not inadequate but logically sufficient as a gesture of intent.

The final couplet seals this: payment itself is never complete because the relationship itself never ends. She will 'pay it while I live,' but 'paying is not paid until I die.' This redefines debt from a transaction (which ends) into a condition of being (which ends only with death). For Bradstreet, acknowledging her father's generative role is not a debt she can settle but a debt she can only continuously acknowledge.

Genre and Context

CONTEXT This poem was written by Bradstreet (1612-1672) as a dedicatory verse, likely accompanying a manuscript of her work. Her father, Thomas Dudley, was a colonial administrator and poet himself. The poem operates within the Renaissance tradition of dedicatory verse—a formal, often obligatory genre where poets thank patrons or family members.

What's unusual here is Bradstreet's refusal of the expected flattery. Instead of praising her father's greatness, she systematically argues that she has nothing adequate to give him. She doesn't claim her verses are worthy; she claims they're 'simple,' a 'crumb,' a 'mite.' This inversion of the dedicatory form—where the gift-giver typically inflates the gift's value—becomes her actual argument: the inadequacy of any daughter's repayment is precisely the point. The form of the poem (a neat 14-line argument) proves her capability as a poet while the content denies she deserves credit for it. She wins by losing.