Question

What does " And my clay house mold'ring away" and " Nor grinding pains in my body frail" mean?

Answer 1

Looking at the context that the poem is in, it shows that the speakers body is getting older as her body is not as able now. We can see how she feels about the change of her body as she ages when she says, "And my clay house mold'ring away." As she can feel herself becoming more weak she represents it in the poem by saying, "Nor grinding pains my body frail" When we re-read these two lines it really helps us understand that with time the body gets weaker and weaker and the only thing that sets the body free from that aging and weakness is death.

Step-by-step explanation:

I took the sample answer and put it into my own words, heres the sample answer: Considering the context of the poem, these lines reveal that the speaker’s body is aging. She suffers from a number of ailments that come with age and therefore she feels her body is rotting away. This feeling is expressed in the line "And my clay house mold’ring away." These ailments have also left her body very weak. The line ""Nor grinding pains my body frail" corroborates this view. Based on these two lines the speaker perhaps feels the physical body is a vessel that people possess in their mortal form. This vessel endures the hardships that time brings. Only upon death is a person free from the physical body.

Answer 2

The poem "As Weary Pilgrim", by Anne Bradstreet is about finishing a journey (a "pilgrimage"). The author describes all the things that the pilgrim, having finished his journey, will never feel again. Bradstreet is clearly using the end of a pilgrimage as a metaphor for the end of a life, for the moment of death, and thus expressing her desire to reach that moment of eternal, blissful rest.

The phrase "And my clay house mold'ring away" refers to the body, aged and tired and near the moment of death.

The phrase "Nor grinding pains in my body frail" refers to that moment of eternal rest where there is no pain, only peace and bliss in the eternal afterlife.