The husband in this poem never hears a word of it. He is "he" and "my dear," a figure heading out to sea, while every line is addressed to God. That choice shapes the whole poem. The speaker cannot hold on to her husband, so she hands him over in prayer, asking for calm winds, protection in "storms and sickness," and a safe return. Her central idea is that parting can be endured as an act of obedience. The poem also shows how much that obedience costs her.
The form is plain and hymn-like. Most stanzas alternate longer and shorter lines and rhyme the second line with the fourth: "thine" with "sign," "back" with "slack," "gales" with "fails." The rhymes are simple and almost all the words are short, which suits a speaker who wants to sound steady. The repeated "Thou," "Thy" and "Lord" keep the address to God constant, like a hand kept on a railing. The pattern slips, though. In the second stanza, "Lord" and "friend" do not rhyme, and the lines stretch and break unevenly. This is where she first names her husband, and the smooth surface of the verse stumbles just as she does.
The imagery is sparse, and it is more effective for that. God is asked to be "pilot to the ship," and the husband's whole voyage becomes a few strokes: gales, storms, sickness. "Everlasting arms of mercy" gives God the embrace she cannot give herself, and "Hide not Thy face away" imagines a God who might turn from her the way a husband has. Some of the language is almost commercial. Her husband needs "favour in their eyes to whom / He shall make his address," and she fears that God's people, brought "to wilderness," might be "sold away for nought." Judging by these lines, his errand carries public weight for a whole community, not just a private one. That lets her place her own loss inside a larger purpose.
The emotional center is the run from the fourth to the sixth stanza. "Thou see'st how weak and frail I am," she admits, then adds that she submitted "in obedience" because "it was my duty." The last line of that stanza, "O Lord, accept of it," makes her obedience sound like an offering she hopes will be received. Next comes a more surprising fear: "Unthankfulness for mercies past / Impute Thou not to me." She seems afraid that her sorrow could look like ingratitude, so she defends her "weak desire" by insisting it was "to sing praise." The poem lets her grieve only after she has first apologised for it.
Feeling breaks through most openly in the phrase "once again." "Lord, let my eyes see once again / Him whom Thou gavest me" is the plainest wish in the poem. The husband is a gift, and gifts can be taken back. "Dear" appears twice, as "my dear friend" and "send back my dear," and in both places the word sounds tender and slightly hesitant. The rhyme of "me" with "Thee" in this stanza, and again earlier, puts husband and God side by side as if they were one gift and one giver.
The final stanza turns petition into promise. She no longer asks only for his safety. She vows that "the remainder of our days / Shall consecrated be / With an engaged heart." "Engaged" here means pledged and bound, and it also carries a hint of the intimacy of marriage. Their life together becomes shared praise. The prayer starts by addressing the God who "rulest all" and ends with a human pledge, so that anxious waiting becomes a plan for the future.
The poem is worth reading because it refuses to treat faith and feeling as opposites. Bradstreet writes within the devotional habits of a Puritan world, yet the subject is intimate: a spouse leaving, a woman trying to be brave. The ordinary details of marriage and worry are what make the verse feel alive. She never says "I am afraid," but the quiet pleading in "Hide not Thy face away" says it for her.