This poem was written after her brother-in-law took her poems and sent them to England to be published. To our best knowledge, she didn't know that he had them published until after the fact. That leads us to finding a possible twist in this poem of how she viewed her work being published without her prior knowledge. .
In the first few lines of this poem, we find how she views her poems. "Thou ill-formed offspring of my feeble brain, Who after birth didst by my side remain." (158) This shows us that she views her poetry as her children. She has created them with her mind. Then they were taken from her and were allowed to be viewed by the public as we see in the third and fourth lines. "Till snatched from thence by friends, less wise than true, who thee abroad, exposed to public view." (158) She recognizes that they were trying to do a good thing by publishing her poems but she views doing it without her consent is "less wise than true" meaning that their intentions were good though she would not have wanted her works published like they were.
Lines five and six: "Made thee in rags, halting to th" press to trudge, Where errors were not lessened (all may judge)." (158) She acknowledges that she was writing a rough draft in a way. She had written them and had not gone back to correct any mistakes she had made or to reword something that she would like to have said differently. She is afraid that everyone will judge her writing for all the mistakes and the roughness of the writing.
Lines seven and eight: "At thy return my blushing was not small, My rambling brat (in print) should mother call, I cast thee by as one unfit for light, Thy visage was so irksome in my sight." (158) Bradstreet is expressing her feeling of embarrassment for the way her poems look on print. The use of visage, which means appearance, is a comparison to a dirty face. She finds her printed poems dirty and unattractive.
