Phillis Wheatley (1753?-84)
Phillis Wheatley was one of the most renowned of poets in colonial America even though she was bom in Africa and brought to the American colonies as a slave when she was a child. Although scholars are unsure of her birth place, the consensus is that she was born in Senegal and brought to Boston in 1761. She was then purchased by John and Susanna Wheatley. John Wheatley was a tailor who was also a successful merchant. The family was part of the evangelical reform movement in American Protestantism, prominent in Boston during the mid-eighteenth century. The Wheatleys quickly came to recognize the strong intellectual abilities of the young girl, and they decided to educate her along with their own children. She was even taught Latin, certainly something most white girls would not have studied in eighteenth-century Britain or New England.
While still quite young, she began writing poetry and in 1767 published her first poem in the Newport Mercury. Wheatley wrote in a formal style popular in her time, focusing often on religious topics but placing them in a universal context touching on questions of creation and teleology, issues of good and evil, and metaphysical questions more broadly. She has sometimes been criticized by current scholars seeking the roots of African American or feminist literature. She almost never spoke from her identity as a woman, but she did remind her readers that she came from another land, was not free, and could never share their free existence. In 1770 she published "Africa,” a poem on her homeland. She later expressly contrasted the claims of freedom and independence from Britain put forward by colonialists against the condition of herself, and others like her, who were brought to American shores in chains. Her origins were laid out in “To S.M., a Young African Painter, On Seeing His Works” and “On Being Brought from Africa to America.” Because of the fear of doubt concerning her authorship, the latter poem contained a foreword by eighteen prominent American men verifying that Phillis Wheatley was indeed its author.
In 1773 Wheatley traveled to Britain with a collection of her poems, entitled Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral. With its publication in England, she became the first African American to publish a book, but the volume was not published in the colonies until 1777. In 1770 she had published a poem, “On the death of the Rev. Mr. George Whitefield” (Whitefield had been chaplain to the Countess of Huntingdon), and during her stay in England she was the guest of the countess, to whom she dedicated the book. Following a triumphal tour of Britain, where she especially captivated London literary society, she returned to Boston. The Wheatleys emancipated her, but she continued to live in their household.
In 1768 Wheatley had written “To the King's Most Excellent Majesty,” praising George III for the repeal of the Stamp Act. But as the American Revolution approached, she wrote a number of poems siding with the colonists against his rule and that of the British parliament. She wrote verses praising individual leaders of the American Revolution, including one entitled “To His Excellency General Washington” in 1775, when he was appointed commander in chief of the continental army, and “On the Death of General Wooster,” written in 1778.
Following the breakup of the Wheatley family with the death of John Wheatley, Phillis married a free black man, John Peters. The marriage between Peters and Wheatley was not a happy one, but she continued to write poetry and managed a boardinghouse as well. Not only did she have personal problems with her husband, but the family suffered great poverty and she had to devote much of her time to securing her family’s economic survival. She published the poem “Liberty and Peace, A Poem” in 1784 and was planning a second volume of poetry when she died shortly after the birth of her third child in 1784.
While many prominent Americans praised her work, Thomas Jefferson denied that she could be considered seriously as a poet, in keeping with his arguments about the inherent inferiority of blacks. Wheatley was treated as an oddity by those who found it remarkable that a slave girl was educated and wrote poetry. Her abilities were cited by early abolitionists pointing out the evils of slavery. She was used as well by Jefferson and others upholding racist values as standing for what they saw as the ridiculous pretensions of black Americans who claimed to possess abilities similar to their white brothers and sisters. Later, she was criticized by some black scholars for not sufficiently identifying with her race; the religious, rational, and nonemotional quality of her verse was said to reveal her over-great identification with her white owners and their circle of friends.
Few have found it possible to treat her on her own terms, as a young African American poet who was deeply religious and who wrote in the literary form popular in her age. Her reliance on Alexander Pope as a model may have limited the range of topics to which her works were addressed, but it was a common practice among young poets of her generation. Nor can she be fairly judged either as an inferior imitator or as a writer without conscious Page 124 →identity of race or gender, conforming too greatly to the values of middle-class, Protestant Boston. Though she gained support especially from Susanna Wheatley and the circle of evangelical women to which she belonged, this did not define Phillis Wheatley's personal identity. One can find expressions of such identity not simply in her few poems about Africa and slavery but also in the fervent support for values of independence and liberty characterizing her poems supporting the American Revolution, and perhaps most poignantly in one of her earliest poems, “To the University of Cambridge, in New England,” which reflected her frustrated intellectual goals as a black, a slave, and a female, in contrast to Harvard students of her age.
Washington and other leaders wrote her letters praising her writing, and the crowds of London flocked to see a sight as strange as a young American slave writing verse. Although the Wheatleys were kind to her and enabled her to pursue the career of a writer, after she left that family, she suffered the poverty facing free blacks living in eighteenth-century America. Not seeming to fit in any world, she ultimately died young, so distant from the fame she gained as the almost unbelievable blazing star, a young female slave poet. While those most interested in the works of Phillis Wheatley continue to be literary scholars, recent essays have concentrated on her biography, her place in eighteenth-century religious and intellectual production, and studies of her poetry as an expression of her perspective as a slave and African American, her “subtle war” against slave society (see especially Willard, 1995).
The following selections are from Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773) and from William H. Robinson’s Phyllis Wheatley and Her Writings (1984).
HLS
Sources and Suggested Readings
- Barker-Benfield, G. J. “Phillis Wheatley.” Portraits of American Women: From Settlement to the Present. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991.
- Bennett, Paula Bernat, ed. Nineteenth-Century American Women Poets: An Anthology. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 1998.
- Burke, Helen M. “The Rhetoric and Politics of Marginality: The Subject of Phillis Wheatley.” Tulsa Studies in Womens Literature 10, 1 (1991): 31-45.
- Felker, Christopher. “‘The Tongues of the Learned Are Insufficient’: Phillis Wheatley, Publishing Objectives, and Personal Liberty.” In Texts and Textuality: Textual Instability, Theory, and Interpretation, ed. Philip Cohen, 81-119. New York: New York University Press, 1997.
- Foster, Frances Smith. Written by Herself: Literary Production by African American Women, 1746-1892. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993.
- Gates, Henry Louis. Figures in Black: Words, Signs, and the “Racial" Self. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.
- Grimsted, David. “Anglo-American Racism and Phillis Wheatley’s ‘Sable Veil,’ ‘Length’ned Chain,’ and ‘Knitted Heart.’” Women in the Age of the American Revolution. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1989.
- Jordan, June. “The Difficult Miracle of Black Poetry in America.” Massachusetts Review 27 (Summer 1986): 252-62.
- Levernier, James A. “Phillis Wheatley and the New England Clergy.” Early American Literature 26, 1 (1991): 21-38.
- Nott, Walt. “From ‘Uncultivated Barbarian’ to ‘Poetical Genius’: The Public Presence of Phillis Wheatley.” MELUS: The Journal of the Society for the Study of Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States 18, 3 (Fall 1993): 21-32.
- O’Neale, Sondra. “A Slave’s Subtle War: Phillis Wheatley’s Use of Biblical Myth and Symbol.” Early American Literature 21,2 (1986): 144-65.
- Richards, Phillip M. “Phillis Wheatley and Literary Americanization.” American Quarterly 44, 2 (1992): 163-91.
- Robinson, William H. Critical Essays on Phillis Wheatley. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1982.
- ———. Phyllis Wheatley: A Bio-Bibliography. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1981.
- ———. Phyllis Wheatley and Her Writings. New York: Garland, 1984.
- Scheick, William J. “Subjection and Prophecy in Phillis Wheatley’s Verse Paraphrases of Scripture.” College Literature 22, 3 (1995): 122-30.
- Scruggs, Charles. “Phillis Wheatley and the Poetical Legacy of Eighteenth-Century England.” Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture 10 (1981): 279-95.
- Wheatley, Phillis [Peters]. Poems and Letters: First Collected Edition. Ed. Charles F. Heartman. With an Appreciation by Arthur A. Schomburg. Publisher and date unknown. Reprinted: Miami, Fla.: Mnemosyne, 1969.
- ———. The Poems of Phillis Wheatley. Ed. Julian D. Mason, Jr. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989.
- ———. Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral. London: Printed for A. Bell, Bookseller, Aldgate, 1773.
- Willard, Carla. “Wheatley’s Turns of Praise: Heroic Entrapment and the Paradox of Revolution.” American Literature 67, 2 (June 1995): 233-56.
Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773)
To the University of Cambridge, in New-England. 1767.
While an intrinsic ardor prompts to write,
The muses promise to assist my pen;
Twas not long since I left my native shore
The land of errors, and Egyptian gloom:
Father of mercy, ’twas thy gracious hand
Brought me in safety from those dark abodes.
Students, to you "tis giv’n to scan the heights
Above, to traverse the ethereal space,
And mark the systems of revolving worlds.
Still more, ye sons of science ye receive
The blissful news by messengers from heav’n,
How Jesus' blood for your redemption flows.
See him with hands out-stretcht upon the cross;
Immense compassion in his bosom glows;
He hears revilers, nor resents their scorn:
What matchless mercy in the Son of God!
When the whole human race by sin had fall’n,
He deign'd to die that they might rise again,
And share with him in the sublimest skies,
Life without death, and glory without end.
Improve your privileges while they stay,
Ye pupils, and each hour redeem, that bears
Or good or bad report of you to heav’n.
Let sin, that baneful evil to the soul,
By you be shunn’d, nor once remit your guard;
Suppress the deadly serpent in its egg.
Ye blooming plants of human race divine,
An Ethiop tells you 'tis your greatest foe;
Its transient sweetness turns to endless pain,
And in immense perdition sinks the soul.
To the KING’S Most Excellent Majesty. 1768.
Your subjects hope, dread Sire—
The crown upon your brows may flourish long,
And that your arm may in your God be strong!
O may your sceptre num’rous nations sway,
And all with love and readiness obey!
But how shall we the British king reward!
Rule thou in peace, our father, and our lord!
Midst the remembrance of thy favours past,
The meanest peasants most admire the last.*
May George, belov’d by all the nations round,
Live with heav’ns choicest constant blessings crown’d!
Great God, direct, and guard him from on high,
And from his head let ev'ry evil fly!
And may each clime with equal gladness see
A monarch’s smile can set his subjects free!
*The Repeal of the Stamp Act.
On being brought from Africa to America.
'Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land,
Taught my benighted soul to understand
That there’s a God, that there’s a Saviour too:
Once I redemption neither sought nor knew.
Some view our sable race with scornful eye,
"Their colour is a diabolic die.”
Remember, Christians, Negros, black as Cain,
May be refin’d, and join th’ angelic train.
On the Death of the Rev. Mr. GEORGE WHITEFIELD. 1770.
Hail, happy saint, on thine immortal throne,
Possest of glory, life, and bliss unknown;
We hear no more the music of thy tongue,
Thy wonted auditories cease to throng.
Thy sermons in unequall’d accents flow’d,
And ev’ry bosom with devotion glow’d;
Thou didst in strains of eloquence refin’d
Inflame the heart, and captivate the mind.
Unhappy we the setting sun deplore,
So glorious once, but ah! it shines no more.
Behold the prophet in his tow ring flight!
He leaves the earth for heav’n’s unmeasur’d height,
And worlds unknown receive him from our sight.
There Whitefield wings with rapid course his way,
And sails to Zion through vast seas of day.
Thy pray’rs, great saint, and thine incessant cries
Have pierc’d the bosom of thy native skies.
Thou moon hast seen, and all the stars of light,
How he has wrestled with his God by night.
He pray’d that grace in ev’ry heart might dwell,
He long’d to see America excel;
He charg’d its youth that ev’ry grace divine
Should with full lustre in their conduct shine;
That Saviour, which his soul did first receive,
The greatest gift that ev’n a God can give;
He freely offer’d to the num’rous throng,
That on his lips with list’ning pleasure hung.
"Take him, ye wretched, for your only good,
"Take him ye starving sinners, for your food;
Page 126 →“Ye thirsty, come to this life-giving stream,
“Ye preachers, take him for your joyful theme;
“Take him my dear Americans, he said,
“Be your complaints on his kind bosom laid:
“Take him, ye Africans, he longs for you,
“Impartial Saviour is his title due:
“Wash’d in the fountain of redeeming blood,
“You shall be sons, and kings, and priests to God.”
Great Countess, * we Americans revere
Thy name, and mingle in thy grief sincere;
New England deeply feels, the Orphans mourn,
Their more than father will no more return.
But, though arrested by the hand of death,
Whitefield no more exerts his laboring breath,
Yet let us view him in th’ eternal skies,
Let ev’ry heart to this bright vision rise;
While the tomb safe retains its sacred trust,
Till life divine re-animates his dust.
*The Countess of Huntingdon, to whom Mr. Whitefield was Chaplain.
Thoughts on the Works of Providence.
Arise, my soul, on wings enraptur’d, rise
To praise the monarch of the earth and skies,
Whose goodness and beneficence appear
As round its centre moves the rolling year,
Or when the morning glows with rosy charms,
Or the sun slumbers in the ocean’s arms:
Of light divine be a rich portion lent
To guide my soul, and favour my intent.
Celestial muse, my arduous flight sustain,
And raise my mind to a seraphic strain!
Ador’d for ever be the God unseen,
Which round the sun revolves this vast machine,
Though to his eye its mass a point appears:
Ador’d the God that whirls surrounding spheres,
Which first ordain’d that mighty Sol should reign
The peerless monarch of th’ ethereal train:
Of miles twice forty millions is his height,
And yet his radiance dazzles mortal sight
So far beneath—from him th’ extended earth
Vigour derives, and ev’ry flow’ry birth:
Vast through her orb she moves with easy grace
Around her Phoebus in unbounded space;
True to her course th’ impetuous storm derides,
Triumphant o’er the winds, and surging tides.
Almighty, in these wond’rous works of thine,
What Pow’r, what Wisdom, and what Goodness shine?
And are thy wonders, Lord, by men explor’d,
And yet creating glory unador’d!
Creation smiles in various beauty gay,
While day to night, and night succeeds to day:
That Wisdom, which attends Jehovah's ways,
Shines most conspicuous in the solar rays:
Without them, destitute of heat and light,
This world would be the reign of endless night:
In their excess how would our race complain,
Abhorring life! how hate its length’ned chain!
From air adust what num’rous ills would rise?
What dire contagion taint the burning skies?
What pestilential vapours, fraught with death,
Would rise, and overspread the lands beneath?
Hail, smiling morn, that from the orient main
Ascending dost adorn the heav’nly plain!
So rich, so various are thy beauteous dies,
That spread through all the circuit of the skies,
That, full of thee, my soul in rapture soars,
And thy great God, the cause of all adores.
O’er beings infinite his love extends,
His Wisdom rules them, and his Pow’r defends.
When tasks diurnal tire the human frame,
The spirits faint, and dim the vital flame,
Then too that ever active bounty shines,
Which not infinity of space confines.
The sable veil, that Night in silence draws,
Conceals effects, but shews th’Almighty Cause;
Night seals in sleep the wide creation fair,
And all is peaceful but the brow of care.
Again, gay Phoebus, as the day before,
Wakes ev’ry eye, but what shall wake no more;
Again the face of nature is renew’d,
Which still appears harmonious, fair, and good.
May grateful strains salute the smiling morn,
Before its beams the eastern hills adorn!
Shall day to day and night to night conspire
To show the goodness of the Almighty Sire?
This mental voice shall man regardless hear,
And never, never raise the filial pray'r?
To-day, O hearken, nor your folly mourn
For time mispent, that never will return.
But see the sons of vegetation rise,
And spread their leafy banners to the skies.
All-wise Almighty Providence we trace
In trees, and plants, and all the flow’ry race;
As clear as in the nobler frame of man,
All lovely copies of the Maker’s plan.
Page 127 →The pow’r the same that forms a ray of light,
That call’d creation from eternal night.
“Let there be light,” he said: from his profound
Old Chaos heard, and trembled at the sound;
Swift as the word, inspir'd by pow’r divine,
Behold the light around its maker shine,
The first fair product of th' omnific God,
And now through all his works diffus’d abroad.
As reason’s pow'rs by day our God disclose,
So we may trace him in the night's repose:
Say what is sleep? and dreams how passing strange!
When action ceases, and ideas range
Licentious and unbounded o'er the plains,
Where Fancy's queen in giddy triumph reigns.
Hear in soft strains the dreaming lover sigh
To a kind fair, or rave in jealousy;
On pleasure now, and now on vengeance bent,
The lab’ring passions struggle for a vent.
What pow’r, O man! thy reason then restores,
So long suspended in nocturnal hours?
What secret hand returns the mental train,
And gives improv'd thine active pow’rs again?
From thee, O man, what gratitude should rise!
And, when from balmy sleep thou op'st thine eyes,
Let thy first thoughts be praises to the skies.
How merciful our God who thus imparts
O'erflowing tides of joy to human hearts,
When wants and woes might be our righteous lot,
Our God forgetting, by our God forgot!
Among the mental pow’rs a question rose,
“What most the image of th’ Eternal shows?”
When thus to Reason (so let Fancy rove)
Her great companion spoke immortal Love.
“Say, mighty pow’r, how long shall strife prevail,
“And with its murmurs load the whisp’ring gale?
“Refer the cause to Recollections shrine,
“Who loud proclaims my origin divine,
“The cause whence heav’n and earth began to be,
“And is not man immortaliz’d by me?
“Reason let this most causeless strife subside.”
Thus Love pronounc’d, and Reason thus reply’d.
“Thy birth, celestial queen! 'tis mine to own,
“In thee resplendent is the Godhead shown;
“Thy words persuade, my soul enraptur’d feels
“Resistless beauty which thy smile reveals.”
Ardent she spoke, and, kindling at her charms,
She clasp’d the blooming goddess in her arms.
Infinite Love where’er we turn our eyes
Appears: this ev’ry creature’s wants supplies;
This most is heard in Natures constant voice,
This makes the morn, and this the eve rejoice;
This bids the fost’ring rains and dews descend
To nourish all, to serve one gen’ral end,
The good of man: yet man ungrateful pays
But little homage, and but little praise.
To him, whose works array’d with mercy shine,
What songs should rise, how constant, how divine!
Isaiah Ixiii. 1-8
Say, heav’nly muse, what king, or mighty God,
That moves sublime from Idumea's road?
In Bozrab’s dies, with martial glories join’d,
His purple vesture waves upon the wind.
Why thus enrob’d delights he to appear
In the dread image of the Pow’r of war?
Compress’d in wrath the swelling wine-press groan’d,
It bled, and pour’d the gushing purple round.
“Mine was the act,” th’ Almighty Saviour said,
And shook the dazzling glories of his head,
“When all forsook I trod the press alone,
“And conquer’d by omnipotence my own;
“For man’s release sustain’d the pond’rous load,
“For man the wrath of an immortal God:
“To execute th’ Eternal’s dread command
“My soul I sacrific’d with willing hand;
“Sinless I stood before the avenging frown,
“Atoning thus for vices not my own.”
His eye the ample field of battle round
Survey’d, but no created succours found;
His own omnipotence sustain’d the fight,
His vengeance sunk the haughty foes in night;
Beneath his feet the prostrate troops were spread,
And round him lay the dying, and the dead.
Great God, what lightning flashes from thine eyes?
What pow’r withstands if thou indignant rise?
Against thy Zion though her foes may rage,
And all their cunning, all their strength engage,
Yet she serenely on thy bosom lies,
Smiles at their arts, and all their force defies.
On Imagination,
Thy various works, imperial queen, we see,
How bright their forms! how deck’d with pomp by thee!
Page 128 →Thy wond'rous acts in beauteous order stand,
And all attest how potent is thine hand.
From Helicon's refulgent heights attend,
Ye sacred choir, and my attempts befriend:
To tell her glories with a faithful tongue,
Ye blooming graces, triumph in my song.
Now here, now there, the roving Fancy flies,
Till some lov'd object strikes her wand ring eyes,
Whose silken fetters all the senses bind,
And soft captivity involves the mind.
Imagination'. who can sing thy force?
Or who describe the swiftness of thy course?
Soaring through air to find the bright abode,
Th’ empyreal palace of the thund'ring God,
We on thy pinions can surpass the wind,
And leave the rolling universe behind:
From star to star the mental optics rove,
Measure the skies, and range the realms above.
There in one view we grasp the mighty whole,
Or with new worlds amaze th' unbounded soul.
Though Winter frowns to Fancy's raptur’d eyes
The fields may flourish, and gay scenes arise;
The frozen deeps may break their iron bands,
And bid their waters murmur o'er the sands.
Fair Flora may resume her fragrant reign,
And with her flow'ry riches deck the plain;
Sylvanus may diffuse his honours round,
And all the forest may with leaves be crown'd:
Show’rs may descend, and dews their gems disclose,
And nectar sparkle on the blooming rose.
Such is thy pow’r, nor are thine orders vain,
O thou the leader of the mental train:
In full perfection all thy works are wrought,
And thine the sceptre o’er the realms of thought.
Before thy throne the subject-passions bow,
Of subject-passions sov’reign ruler Thou;
At thy command joy rushes on the heart,
And through the glowing veins the spirits dart.
Fancy might now her silken pinions try
To rise from earth, and sweep th’ expanse on high;
From Tithon's bed now might Aurora rise,
Her cheeks all glowing with celestial dies,
While a pure stream of light o'erflows the skies.
The monarch of the day I might behold,
And all the mountains tipt with radiant gold,
But I reluctant leave the pleasing views,
Which Fancy dresses to delight the Muse;
Winter austere forbids me to aspire,
And northern tempests damp the rising fire;
They chill the tides of Fancy's flowing sea,
Cease then, my song, cease the unequal lay.
To the Right Honourable William, Earl of Dartmouth, His Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State for North-America, &c. (1773)
Hail, happy day, when, smiling like the morn,
Fair Freedom rose New-England to adorn:
The northern clime beneath her genial ray,
Dartmouth, congratulates thy blissful sway:
Elate with hope her race no longer mourns,
Each soul expands, each grateful bosom burns,
While in thine hand with pleasure we behold
The silken reins, and Freedom's charms unfold.
Long lost to realms beneath the northern skies
She shines supreme, while hated faction dies:
Soon as appear'd the Goddess long desir’d,
Sick at the view, she languish'd and expir'd;
Thus from the splendors of the morning light
The owl in sadness seeks the caves of night.
No more, America, in mournful strain
Of wrongs, and grievance unredress'd complain,
No longer shall thou dread the iron chain,
Which wanton Tyranny with lawless hand
Had made, and with it meant t' enslave the land.
Should you, my lord, while you peruse my song,
Wonder from whence my love of Freedom sprung,
Whence flow these wishes for the common good,
By feeling hearts alone best understood,
I, young in life, by seeming cruel fate
Was snatch’d from Afric's fancy’d happy seat:
What pangs excruciating must molest,
What sorrows labour in my parent's breast?
Steel'd was that soul and by no misery mov'd
That from a father seiz'd his babe belov’d:
Such, such my case. And can I then but pray
Others may never feel tyrannic sway?
For favours past, great Sir, our thanks are due,
And thee we ask thy favours to renew,
Since in thy pow’r, as in thy will before,
To sooth the griefs, which thou did'st once deplore.
May heav'nly grace the sacred sanction give
To all thy works, and thou for ever live
Not only on the wings of fleeting Fame,
Though praise immortal crowns the patriot’s name,
But to conduct to heav’ns refulgent fane,
May fiery coursers sweep th’ ethereal plain,
And bear thee upwards to that blest abode,
Where, like the prophet, thou shalt find thy God.
Other writings
[Virginia Gazette, March 20, 1776]:
To His Excellency General Washington
Celestial choir! enthron'd in realms of light,
Columbia’s scenes of glorious toils I write.
While freedom’s cause her anxious breast alarms,
She flashes dreadful in refulgent arms.
See mother earth her offspring’s fate bemoan,
And nations gaze at scenes before unknown!
See the bright beams of heaven’s revolving light
Involv’d in sorrows and the veil of night!
The goddess comes, she moves divinely fair,
Olive and laurel bind her golden hair:
Wherever shines this native of the skies,
Unnumber’d charms and recent graces rise.
Muse! how propitious, while my pen relates
How pour her armies through a thousand gates;
As when Eolus heaven’s fair face deforms,
Enwrap’d in tempest, and a night of storms;
Astonish’d ocean feels the wild uproar,
The refluent surges beat the sounding shore;
Or thick as leaves in autumn’s golden reign,
Such, and so many, moves the warrior train.
In bright array they seek the work of war,
Where high unfurl’d the ensign waves in air.
Shall I to Washington their praise recite?
Enough thou know’st them in the fields of fight.
Thee, first in place and honours,—we demand The grace and glory of thy martial band.
Fam’d for thy valour, for thy virtues more,
Hear every tongue thy guardian aid implore!
One century scarce perform’d its destin’d round,
When Gallic powers Columbia’s fury found;
And so may you, whoever dares disgrace
The land of freedom’s heaven-defended race!
Fix’d are the eyes of nations on the scales,
For in their hopes Columbia’s arm prevails.
Anon Britannia droops the pensive head,
While round increase the rising hills of dead.
Ah! cruel blindness to Columbia’s state!
Lament thy thirst of boundless power too late.
Proceed, great chief, with virtue on thy side,
Thy every action let the goddess guide.
A crown, a mansion, and a throne that shine,
With gold unfading, WASHINGTON! be thine.
On the Death of General Wooster (1778)
From this the Muse rich consolation draws
He nobly perish’d in his Country’s cause
His Country’s Cause that ever fir’d his mind
Where martial flames, and Christian virtues join’d.
How shall my pen his warlike deeds proclaim
Or paint them fairer on the list of Fame—
Enough, great Chief—now wrapt in Shades around
Thy grateful Country shall thy praise resound—
Tho’ not with mortals’ empty praise elate
That vainest vapour to th’ immortal State
Inly serene the expiring hero lies
And thus (while heav’nward roll his swimming eyes)
Permit, great power while yet my fleeting breath
And Spirits wander to the verge of Death—
Permit me yet to paint fair freedom’s charms
For her the Continent shines bright in arms
By thy high will, celestial prize she came—
For her we combat on the field of fame
Without her presence vice maintains full sway
And social love and virtue wing their way
O still propitious be thy guardian care
And lead Columbia thro’ the toils of war.
With thine hand conduct them and defend
And bring the dreadful contest to an end—
For ever grateful let them live to thee
And keep them ever Virtuous, brave, and free—
But how, presumptuous shall we hope to find
Divine acceptance with th’ Almighty mind—
While yet, O deed ungenerous! they disgrace
And hold in bondage Afric’s blameless race?
Let virtue reign—And thou accord our prayers
Be victory our’s, and generous freedom theirs.
The hero pray’d—the wond’ring Spirit fled
And sought the unknown regions of the dead—
Tis thine fair partner of his life, to find
The virtuous path and follow close behind—
A little moment steals him from thy sight
He waits thy coming to the realms of light
Freed from his labours in the ethereal Skies
Where in succession endless pleasures rise!
Liberty and Peace (1784)
Lo freedom comes. Th’ prescient muse foretold,
All eyes th’ accomplish’d prophecy behold:
Her port describ’d, “She moves divinely fair,
Olive and laurel bind her golden hair.”
She, the bright progeny of Heaven, descends,
And every grace her sovereign step attends;
For now kind Heaven, indulgent to our prayer,
In smiling peace resolves the din of war.
Fix’d in Columbia her illustrious line,
Page 130 →And bids in thee her future council shine.
To every realm her portals open’d wide,
Receives from each the full commercial tide.
Each art and science now with rising charms,
Th’ expanding heart with emulation warns.
E’en great Britannia sees with dread surprise,
And from the dazzling splendor turns her eyes.
Britain, whose navies swept th’ Atlantic o’er,
And thunder sent to every distant shore;
E’en thou, in manners cruel as thou art,
The sword resign’d, resume the friendly part.
For Gallia’s power espous’d Columbia’s cause,
And new-born Rome shall give Britannia laws,
Nor unremember’d in the grateful strain,
Shall princely Louis’ friendly deeds remain;
The generous prince th’ impending vengeance eyes,
Sees the fierce wrong and to the rescue flies.
Perish that thirst of boundless power, that drew
On Albion’s head the curse to tyrants due.
But thou appeas’d submit to Heaven’s decree,
That bids this realm of freedom rival thee.
Now sheathe the sword that bade the brave atone
With guiltless blood for madness not their own.
Sent from th’ enjoyment of their native shore,
Ill-fated—never to behold her more.
From every kingdom on Europe’s coast
Throng’d various troops, their glory, strength, and boast.
With heart-felt pity fair Hibernia saw
Columbia menac’d by the Tyrant’s law:
On hostile fields fraternal arms engage,
And mutual deaths, all dealt with mutual rage:
The muse’s ear hears mother earth deplore
Her ample surface smoke with kindred gore:
The hostile field destroys the social ties,
And everlasting slumber seals their eyes.
Columbia mourns, the haughty foes deride,
Her treasures plunder’d and her towns destroy’d:
Witness how Charlestown’s curling smokes arise,
In sable columns to the clouded skies.
The ample dome, high-wrought with curious toil,
In one sad hour the savage troops despoil.
Descending peace the power of war confounds;
From every tongue celestial peace resounds:
As from the east th’ illustrious king of day,
With rising radiance drives the shades away,
So freedom comes array’d with charms divine,
And in her train commerce and plenty shine.
Britannia owns her independent reign,
Hibernia, Scotia and the realms of Spain;
And great Germania’s ample coast admires
The generous spirit that Columbia fires.
Auspicious Heaven shall fill with fav’ring gales,
Where e’er Columbia spreads her swelling sails:
To every realm shall peace her charms display,
And heavenly freedom spread her golden ray.
[Massachusetts Spy, March 24, 1774]:
The following is an extract of a letter from Phillis, a Negro girl of Mr. Wheatley's of this town to the Reverend Samson Occom, which we are desired to insert as a specimen of her ingenuity. It is dated the 11th of February, 1774.
Reverend and honoured Sir,
I have this Day received your obliging kind Epistle, and am greatly satisfied with your Reasons respecting the negroes, and think highly reasonable what you offer in Vindication of their natural Rights: Those that invade them cannot be insensible that the divine Light is insensibly chasing away the thick Darkness which broods over the Land of Africa; and the Chaos which has reigned so long is converting into beautiful Order, and reveals more and more clearly the glorious Dispensation of civil and religious Liberty, which are so inseparably united, that there is little or no Enjoyment of one without the other: Otherwise, perhaps the Israelites had been less solicitous for their Freedom from Egyptian slavery; I do not say they would have been contented without it, by no means, for in every human Breast, God has implanted a Principle, which we call Love of Freedom; it is impatient of oppression, and pants for Deliverance—and by the Leave of our modern Egyptians I will assert that the same principle lives in us. God grant Deliverance in his own Way and Time, and get him honour upon all those whose Avaraice impels them to countenance and help forward the Calamities of their fellow Creatures. This I desire not for their Hurt, but to convince them of the strange Absurdity of their Conduct whose Words and Actions are so diametrically opposite. How well the Cry for Liberty, and the reverse Disposition for the exercise of oppressive power over others agree I humbly think it does not require the penetration of a Philosopher to determine.