Baquaqua : Afro-Diasporic Text Corpus

Phillis Wheatley date unknown

ATTEND my lays, ye ever honour’d nine,
Assist my labours, and my strains refine ;
In smoothest numbers pour the notes along,
For bright Aurora now demands my song.

Aurora hail, and all the thousands dies,
Which deck thy progress through the vaulted skies :
The morn awakes, and wide extends her rays,
On ev’ry leaf the gentle zephyr plays ;
Harmonious lays the feather’d race resume,
Dart the bright eye, and shake the painted plume.

Ye shady groves, your verdant gloom display
To shield your poet from the burning day :
Calliope awake the sacred lyre,
While thy fair sisters fan the pleasing fire :
The bow’rs, the gales, the variegated skies
In all their pleasures in my bosom rise.

See in the east th’ illustrious king of day !
His rising radiance drives the shades away––
But Oh! I feel his fervid beams too strong,
And scarce begun, concludes th’ abortive song.

Wheatley, Phillis (1773) Poems on Various Subjects, Moral and Religious. London : A. Bell pp. 56-57.

Original printing at:
https://archive.org/details/poemsonvarioussu00whea/page/56/mode/2up

Genre: Poetry
Language : English
Meter: Iambic Pentamer