A Muse from Africa

By PHILLIS WHEATLEY

POEMS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL

by PHILLIS WHEATLEY

124 pages. Archibald Bell.

3 shillings 4 pence.

No general could ask for a more resounding vote of confidence.

Thee, first in peace and honours...

Fam'd for thy valour, for thy virtues more,

Hear every tongue thy guardian aid implore!

Proceed, great chief, with virtue on thy side,

Thy ev'ry action let the goddess guide.

A crown, a mansion, and a throne that shine, With gold unfading,

WASHINGTON! be thine.

These lines are from a poem by Phillis Wheatley, which was recently published in the Pennsylvania Magazine and also sent by the author to General George Washington while he was still encamped outside Boston. He thanked her and added: "If you should ever come near headquarters, I shall be happy to see a person so favored by the Muses." Since Phillis Wheatley lives in Boston, she did soon pay him a visit. Thus met the new general of the American Army and a former slave girl.

The encounter has aroused new interest in both the author and her first book of poems, originally published in London in 1773 and now on sale in the Colonies. Born in Africa (she does not know exactly what part of Africa), she was brought to America by a slaver in 1761. She was then seven or eight years old, by the estimate of John Wheatley, a prosperous Boston tailor, who bought the thin little waif with the idea that she should be trained to attend his wife Susannah. In a testimonial letter to the publisher, Wheatley writes: "Without any assistance from school education, and by only what she was taught in the family, she, in sixteen months time from her arrival, attained the English language . . . to such a degree, as to read any, the most difficult parts of the sacred writings, to the great astonishment of all who heard her."

From the first, Phillis showed no nostalgia for her native continent. One of her earliest poems expressed her gratitude that she had been snatched away:

'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, Negroes, black as Cain,

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

Despite her slave status, the Wheatleys treated her almost like a daughter. In 1773, when she was 20, they formally freed her and sent her on a visit to London, where she arranged for publication of her work. Her poems, often on religious or patriotic themes, occasionally lapse into sentimentality. It is also apparent that her favorite reading is Pope's translation of Homer. Within this idiom, which can so easily descend to jog trot, she frequently so descends. But in all fairness it must be admitted that no other poet currently writing in the Colonies does much better.

Whatever her skills, she is one of the first Africans to be published in America, and certainly the first African poetess. At the age of 23, she has achieved distinction that can stand without reference to her race.

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