Phillis Wheatley

Phillis Wheatley

Phillis Wheatley (1753 – December 5, 1784) was a slave in Boston, Massachusetts, where her master's family taught her to read and write, and encouraged her poetry. Her Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral was the first published book by an African American. (It was published in London because Boston publishers refused.)

Sourced

• When first thy pencil did these beaties give
  And breathing figures learnt from thee to live
  • To A young African painter from Poems on Various Subjects kindle ebook ASIN B0083ZJ7SU
• Creation smiles in various beauty gay
  While day to night, and night succeeds day
  • Works of Providence from Poems on Various Subjects kindle ebook ASIN B0083ZJ7SU

• Some view our sable race with scornful eye,
  "Their colour is a diabolic die."
  Remember, Christians, Negroes, black as Cain,
  May be refin'd, and join th' angelic train.
  • "On Being Brought from Africa to America" lines 5-8, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773)

• But how is Mneme dreaded by the race,
  Who scorn her warnings and despise her grace?
  By her unveil'd each horrid crime appears,
  Her awful hand a cup of wormwood bears.
  Days, years mispent, O what a hell of woe!
  Hers the worst tortures that our souls can know.
  • "On Recollection" st. 2 lines 7-12, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773)

•    No more, America, in mournful strain
  Of wrongs, and grievance unredress'd complain,
  No longer shalt 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?
  • "To The Right Honorable William, Earl of Dartmouth" st. 2-3, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773)

• But, Madam, let your grief be laid aside,
  And let the fountain of your tears be dry'd,
  In vain they flow to wet the dusty plain,
  Your sighs are wafted to the skies in vain,
  Your pains they witness, but they can no more,
  While Death reigns tyrant o'er this mortal shore.
  • "To a Gentleman and Lady on the Death of the Lady's Brother and Sister, and a Child of the Name of Avis, aged one Year." st. 2, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773)

Quotes about Wheatley

• Mrs. Phillis: Your favour of the 26th of October did not reach my hands 'till the middle of December. Time enough, you will say, to have given an answer ere this. Granted. But a variety of important occurrences, continually interposing to distract the mind and withdraw the attention, I hope will apologize for the delay, and plead my excuse for the seeming, but not real neglect. I thank you most sincerely for your polite notice of me in the elegant lines you inclosed; and, however undeserving I may be of such encomium and panegyric, the style and manner exhibit a striking proof of your poetical talents; in honor of which, and as a tribute justly due to you, I would have published the poem had I not been apprehensive that, while I only meant to give the world this new instance of your genius, I might have incurred the imputation of vanity. This, and nothing else, determined me not to give it place in the public prints. If you should ever come to Cambridge, or near headquarters. I shall be happy to see a person so favored by the muses, and to whom Nature has been so liberal and beneficent in her dispensations. If you should ever come to Cambridge, or near Head Quarters, I shall be happy to see a person so favoured by the Muses, and to whom Nature has been so liberal and beneficent in her dispensations. I am, with great Respect, etc.
  • George Washington, as quoted in letter to Phillis Wheatley (2 February 1776).

External links

• Works by Phillis Wheatley at Project Gutenberg