Anna Wickham’s speaker sounds exhausted by a life she did not choose. She is bound to serve “the blood of a king,” but she says her own people were farmers from the West, so she feels out of place in that role. Her real desire is to be the wife of a yeoman, a small farmer, and to find rest in his strong love.
The mood is wistful and a little defiant. Her final wish is not for power or status but to have a child and shape him with her own mind — to raise someone who belongs to her kind. There is warmth in the image of sheltering him in her womb, but also a quiet insistence on being more than a servant.