deceased grandchild as "dear babe," "sweet babe," "fair flower," and "Blest babe" in the first five lines, the poem's tone first appears to be cautiously joyful. Though loss would undoubtedly cause grief, poems with a Puritan influence often took this type of tone. In relation, the narrator, assumed to be Anne Bradstreet, says, "...why should I bewail thy fate,/ Or sigh thy days so soon terminate..." (line 5) since her granddaughter "...art settled in an everlasting state" (line 7). The biblical allusions show how Bradstreet's religion focused on the temporal and eternal aspects of ones life and death, and how they intertwined. So, upon first glance, the poem seems to show Bradstreet handling such loss by assuring herself that the deceased has fully become part of the eternal and ultimately, God's kingdom. Yet the simple fact that Bradstreet included the apparently rhetorical question of "why should I bewail thy fate" b
             ...