Phillis Wheatley E-Book

Phillis Wheatley

• Herausgeber: Renard Press
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 123

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

In 1773, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral became the first book of poetry by an African-American author to be published. At the tender age of seven, Phillis had been brought to Massachusetts as a slave and sold to the well-to-do Wheatley family. There, she threw herself into education, and soon she was devouring the classics and writing verse with whatever she had to hand – odes in chalk on the walls of the house. Once her talent became known, there was uproar, and in 1772 she was interrogated by a panel of 'the most respectable characters in Boston' and forced to defend the ownership of her own words, since many believed that it was an impossible that she, an African-American slave, could write poetry of such high quality. As related in the 1834 memoir by an outspoken proponent of antislavery, B.B. Thatcher, also included in this volume, the road to publication was not straight, and while it became clear that such a volume could not be published in America at the time, Phillis was recommended to a London publisher, who brought out the book – albeit with an attestation as to her authorship, as well as a 'letter from her master' and a short preface asking the reader's indulgence. This edition includes the attestation, the 'letter from her master' and notes from the original publishers as an appendix, so that the twenty-first-century reader can discover Phillis Wheatley as she should have been read – as a poet, not property.

Leseprobe

Phillis Wheatley

poems on various subjects, religious and moral

and

a memoir of phillis wheatley, a native african and a slave

renard press

Renard Press Ltd

124 City Road

London EC1V 2NX

United Kingdom

[email protected]

020 8050 2928

www.renardpress.com

Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral first published in 1773

Memoir of Phillis Wheatley: A Native African and a Slave first published in 1834

This edition first published by Renard Press Ltd in 2020

Edited text © Renard Press Ltd, 2020

Notes, Note on the Text and To the Public © Renard Press Ltd, 2020

Cover design by Will Dady

Proofread by Charlie Morgan

Renard Press is proud to be a climate positive publisher, removing more carbon from the air than we emit and planting a small forest. For more information see renardpress.com/eco.

All rights reserved. This publication may not be reproduced, used to train artificial intelligence systems or models, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise – without the prior permission of the publisher.

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contents

Phillis Wheatley

To The Public

Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral

To Maecenas

On Virtue

To The University of Cambridge in New England

To The King’s Most Excellent Majesty

On Being Brought From Africa to America

On the Death of the Rev. Dr Sewell

On the Death of the Rev. Mr George Whitefield

On the Death of a Young Lady of Five Years of Age

On the Death of a Young Gentleman

To a Lady on the Death of Her Husband

Goliath of Gath

Thoughts on the Works of Providence

To a Lady on the Death of Three Relations

To a Clergyman on the Death of His Lady

A Hymn to the Morning

A Hymn to the Evening

Isaiah lxiii1–8

On Recollection

On Imagination

A Funeral Poem on the Death of C.e.

To Captain H——D of the 65th Regiment

To the Right Honourable William, Earl of Dartmouth

Ode to Neptune

To a Lady on Her Coming to North America

To a Lady on Her Remarkable Preservation

To a Lady and Her Children

To a Gentleman and Lady

On the Death of Dr Samuel Marshall

To a Gentleman on His Voyage

To the Rev. Dr Thomas Amory

On the Death of J.c.

A Hymn to Humanity

To the Honourable T.h., Esq.

Niobe in Distress for Her Children

To S.m., a Young African Painter

To His Honour the Lieutenant Governor

A Farewell to America

A Rebus, By I.b.

An Answer to the Rebus

A Memoir of Phillis Wheatley

Notes

Appendix

phillis wheatley

Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral and A Memoir of Phillis Wheatley, a Native African and a Slave

to the public

In 1761, a slave ship called ThePhillis docked at Boston harbour, having made a slow and tortuous journey from West Africa to the British colony of Massachusetts. On this boat was a seven-year-old girl, who was sold to the well-to-do Wheatley family in Boston; the family’s slaves were growing old, and they wanted a young domestic slave to keep them company in their dotage. Thus Phillis Wheatley was born – renamed after the ship which tore her from her family and the family whose property she became.

Phillis was adored by the family – Susanna Wheatley, in particular – and they helped her to learn English and allowed her to study the classics. Just like Terence, the Roman playwright she writes of, Phillis was brought as a slave to a strange city far from home, and showed such a natural aptitude for language that her owners granted her her freedom.

As related in the 1834 memoir republished in this volume, by Benjamin Bussey Thatcher (1809–40), an outspoken proponent of antislavery, the road to publication was not straight, and early biographers point out that much of Phillis’ poetry may be unknown, since she had such an appetite for writing that she would even do so with chalk on the Wheatleys’ walls, not having the paper to commit her words to. Once her talent became known and the Wheatleys began to encourage her writing, she was met with real disbelief.

In 1772, she was interrogated by a panel and forced to defend the ownership of her own words, since many believed that it was an impossible that she, an African-American slave, could write poetry of such high quality. This view was so prevalent, so acceptable, that the first publisher prefaced the volume of poetry with an ‘attestation from the most respectable characters in Boston, that none might have the least ground for disputing’ their authorship.

In publishing this volume in 2020, moving the attestation of authorship to the end of the book, along with the ‘letter from her master’ and condescending note from the original publishers of the memoir and the poems, it is this Publisher’s fervent hope that the twenty-first-century reader can discover Phillis Wheatley as she should always have been read – as a poet, not property.

– renard press, 2020

poems on various subjects,religious and moral

to the right honourable the

countess of huntingdon,

the following

poems

are most respectfully inscribed

by her much obliged,

very humble

and devoted servant,

phillis wheatley

to maecenas*

Maecenas, you, beneath the myrtle shade,

Read o’er what poets sung and shepherds play’d.

What felt those poets but you feel the same?

Does not your soul possess the sacred flame?

Their noble strains your equal genius shares

In softer language and diviner airs.

While Homer paints, lo! circumfus’d in air,

Celestial Gods in mortal forms appear;

Swift as they move hear each recess rebound,

Heav’n quakes, earth trembles and the shores resound.10

Great sire of verse, before my mortal eyes,

The lightnings blaze across the vaulted skies,

And, as the thunder shakes the heav’nly plains,

A deep-felt horror thrills through all my veins.

When gentler strains demand thy graceful song,

The length’ning line moves languishing along.

When great Patroclus courts Achilles’ aid,*

The grateful tribute of my tears is paid;

Prone on the shore he feels the pangs of love,

And stern Pelides’* tend’rest passions move.20

Great Maro’s strain in heav’nly numbers flows,

The nine* inspire, and all the bosom glows.*

O could I rival thine and Virgil’s page,

Or claim the muses with the Mantuan sage;*

Soon the same beauties should my mind adorn,

And the same ardours in my soul should burn:

Then should my song in bolder notes arise,

And all my numbers pleasingly surprise;

But here I sit, and mourn a grov’lling mind,

That fain would mount, and ride upon the wind.30

Not you, my friend, these plaintive strains become,

Not you, whose bosom is the muses’ home;

When they from tow’ring Helicon* retire,

They fan in you the bright immortal fire,

But I, less happy, cannot raise the song –

The fault’ring music dies upon my tongue.

The happier Terence1 all the choir inspir’d,*

His soul replenish’d and his bosom fir’d;

But say, ye muses, why this partial grace,

To one alone of Afric’s sable race;40

From age to age transmitting thus his name

With the finest glory in the rolls of fame?

Thy virtues, great Maecenas, shall be sung

In praise of him, from whom those virtues sprung;

While blooming wreaths around thy temples spread,

I’ll snatch a laurel from thine honour’d head,

While you indulgent smile upon the deed.

As long as Thames in streams majestic flows,

Or naiads in their oozy beds repose,*

While Phoebus* reigns above the starry train,50

While bright Aurora* purples o’er the main,

So long, great sir, the muse thy praise shall sing,

So long thy praise shall make Parnassus* ring –

Then grant, Maecenas, thy paternal rays;

Hear me propitious, and defend my lays.

11 He was an African by birth.

on virtue

O thou bright jewel, in my aim I strive

To comprehend thee. Thine own words declare

Wisdom is higher than a fool can reach.

I cease to wonder, and no more attempt

Thine height t’explore, or fathom thy profound.

But, O my soul, sink not into despair;

Virtue is near thee, and with gentle hand

Would now embrace thee – hovers o’er thine head.

Fain would the heav’n-born soul with her converse,

Then seek, then court her for her promis’d bliss.

Auspicious queen, thine heav’nly pinions spread,

And lead celestial Chastity along;

Lo! now her sacred retinue descends,

Array’d in glory from the orbs above.

Attend me, Virtue, thro’ my youthful years!

O leave me not to the false joys of time,

But guide my steps to endless life and bliss.

Greatness, or Goodness, say what I shall call thee,

To give me a higher appellation still,

Teach me a better strain, a nobler lay,

O thou, enthron’d with cherubs in the realms of day.

to the university of cambridge in new england*

While an intrinsic ardour 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 receive10

The blissful news by messengers from heav’n,

How Jesus’ blood for your redemption flows.

See him with hands outstretcht 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.20

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.30

to the king’s mostexcellent majesty

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.2*

May George, beloved by all the nations round,

Live with Heav’n’s 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!

1768

21 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 fought nor knew;

Some view our sable race with scornful eye:

‘Their colour is a diabolic dye!’

Remember, Christians: Negroes, black as Cain,*

May be refin’d, and join th’angelic train.

on the death of the rev. dr sewell

Ere yet the morn its lovely blushes spread,

See Sewell number’d with the happy dead.

Hail, holy man, arriv’d th’immortal shore,

Though we shall hear thy warning voice no more.

Come, let us all behold with wishful eyes

The saint ascending to his native skies;

From hence the prophet wing’d his rapt’rous way

To the blest mansions in eternal day.

Then, begging for the Spirit of our God,

And panting eager for the same abode,10

Come, let us all with the same vigour rise,

And take a prospect of the blissful skies;

While on our minds Christ’s image is imprest,

And the dear Saviour glows in ev’ry breast.

Thrice happy saint! to find thy heav’n at last –

What compensation for the evils past!

Great God, incomprehensible, unknown,

By sense, we bow at thine exalted throne.

O, while we beg thine excellence to feel,

Thy sacred Spirit to our hearts reveal,20

And give us of that mercy to partake,

Which thou hast promis’d for the Saviour’s sake!

‘Sewell is dead!’ swift-pinion’d Fame thus cry’d.

‘Is Sewell dead?’ my trembling tongue reply’d.

O, what a blessing in his flight deny’d!

How oft for us the holy prophet pray’d!

How oft to us the word of Life convey’d!

By duty urg’d my mournful verse to close,

I for his tomb this epitaph compose:

‘Lo, here a man, redeem’d by Jesus’ blood,30

A sinner once, but now a saint with God;

Behold ye rich, ye poor, ye fools, ye wise,

Not let his monument your heart surprise;

’Twill tell you what this holy man has done,

Which gives him brighter lustre than the sun.

Listen, ye happy, from your seats above!

I speak sincerely, while I speak and love;

He fought the paths of piety and truth,

By these made happy from his early youth;

In blooming years that grace divine he felt,40

Which rescues sinners from the chains of guilt.

Mourn him, ye indigent, whom he has fed,

And henceforth seek, like him, for living bread;

Ev’n Christ, the bread descending from above,

And ask an int’rest in his saving love.

Mourn him, ye youth, to whom he oft has told

God’s gracious wonders from the times of old.

I too have cause this mighty loss to mourn,

For he my monitor will not return.

O, when shall we to his blest state arrive?50

When the same graces in our bosoms thrive.’

1769

on the death of the rev. mr george whitefield

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 –