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Phillis Wheatley date unknown

WHILE deep you mourn beneath the cypress-shade
The hand of Death, and your dear daughter laid
In dust, whose absence gives your tears to flow,
And racks your bosom with incessant woe,
Let Recollection take a tender part,
Assuage the raging tortures of your heart,
Still the wild tempest of tumultuous grief,
And pour the heav’nly nectar of relief :
Suspend the sigh, dear Sir, and check the groan,
Divinely bright your daughter’s Virtues shone :
How free from scornful pride her gentle mind,
Which ne’er its aid to indigence declin’d !
Expanding free, it sought the means to prove
Unfailing charity, unbounded love !

She unreluctant flies to see no more
Her dear-lov’d parents on earth’s dusky shore :
Impatient heav’n’s resplendent goal to gain,
She with swift progress cuts the azure plain,
Where grief subsides, where changes are no more,
And life’s tumultuous billows cease to roar ;
She leaves her earthly mansion for the skies,
Where new creations feast her wond’ring eyes.

To heav’n’s high mandate cheerfully resign’d
She mounts, and leaves the rolling globe behind ;
She, who late wish’d that Leonard might return,
Has ceas’d to languish, and forgot to mourn ;
To the same high empyreal mansions come,
She joins her spouse, and smiles upon the tomb :
And thus I hear her from the realms above :
” Lo! this the kingdom of celestial love !
” Could ye, fond parents, see our present bliss,
” How soon would you each sigh, each fear dismiss ?
” Amidst unutter’d pleasures whilst I play
” In the fair sunshine of celestial day,
” As far as grief affects an happy soul
” So far doth grief my better mind controul,
” To see on earth my aged parents mourn,
” And secret wish for T──l to return :
” Let brighter scenes your ev’ning-hours employ :
” Converse with heav’n, and taste the promis’d joy.”

Wheatley, Phillis (1773) Poems on Various Subjects, Moral and Religious. London : A. Bell pp. 98-100.

Original printing at:
https://archive.org/details/poemsonvarioussu00whea/page/98/mode/2up
Genre: Poetry
Language : English
Meter: Iambic Pentamer