To My Dear and Loving Husband (Love Poem)

If ever two were one, then surely we.

If ever man were loved by wife, then thee;

If ever wife was happy in a man,

Compare with me ye women if you can …

So begins this short love poem.

Standing at just twelve lines long, it was written by the first poet in America to have a book of poems published – Bradstreet (1612-78) had her volume The Tenth Muse published in 1651.

Bradstreet praises her ‘dear and loving husband’, whom she regards as her complement:

His love is more valuable to her than all the riches of the East, all the gold in the world.

Her love for him, too, can never be exhausted.