In the poem, Bradstreet portrays herself as a mother bird worried about her young. She writes:
If birds could weep, then would my tearsThis anthology includes a footnote for "fowler," explaining only that "fowler is a term for bird-catcher." When I saw the superscript number that indicated a footnote, a mere definition of the term was not what I expected to find because I think this specific image in Bradstreet's metaphor is a Biblical allusion.
Let others know what are my fears
Lest this my brood some harm should catch,
And be surpris'd for want of watch,
Whilst pecking corn, and void of care
They fall un'wares in fowler's snare (lines 41-46)
I've been reading the Bible since July 2014 (and plan to continue to cycle through it, just re-starting when I've finished), and earlier this year, I found this same image of the fowler's snare twice in the Psalms: "For he [God] will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the deadly pestilence. He will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness is a shield and buckler" (Psalm 91:3-4) and "Blessed be the LORD, who has not given us as prey to their teeth! We have escaped like a bird from the snare of the fowlers; the snare is broken, and we have escaped!" (Psalm 124: 6-7). The bird imagery in Psalm 91's "he will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge" is also echoed in Bradstreet's "Long did I keep you soft and warm, / And with my wings kept off all harm" (lines 57-58).
Some of the other Bradstreet poems in this anthology, like "Contemplations" and "The Flesh and the Spirit" have very obvious Biblical references that evidence Bradstreet's familiarity with the Bible so it seems very likely that she would also have been familiar with the fowler image in the Psalms and used it in "In Reference to Her Children."
