Tuesday 27 June – A FORCE OF POETS, Episode Four – Phillis Wheatley

By
William E. Spear

Volume 1, Issue 26

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Full Transcript –

A FORCE OF POETS, PODCAST EPISODE FOUR – Phillis Wheatley

ORIGINAL DATE: 27 June 2023

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The next poet offers praise to start and end the day and an ode for a safe crossing of the Atlantic Ocean.

Hear those and more on . . . The 3:57 by William E. Spear.

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Hello my name is William Spear and this is our series titled A FORCE OF POETS.

Our fourth poet is Phillis Wheatley.

She was born in Gambia, Africa in 1753 and captured by slave traders in 1761. Her first name was changed to that of the ship that brought her to America where she was sold to the Wheatley family of Boston, Massachusetts.

In 1784, she died of complications from childbirth.

But during her life she became the first African American and second woman after Anne Bradstreet to publish a book of poems.

Wheatley’s book, POEMS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL, published in 1773, included the following:
– A FUNERAL POEM ON THE DEATH OF C. E. AN INFANT OF TWELVE MONTHS
– TO HIS HONOUR THE LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR, ON THE DEATH OF HIS LADY. MARCH 24, 1773
– TO S. M. A YOUNG AFRICAN PAINTER, ON SEEING HIS WORKS

This episode focuses on AN HYMN TO THE MORNING, AN HYMN TO THE EVENING, and ODE TO NEPTUNE.

From A FORCE OF POETS . . . this is PHILLIS WHEATLEY.

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An Hymn to the Morning
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 thousand 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’s next is . . .

An Hymn to the Evening
Soon as the sun forsook the eastern main
The pealing thunder shook the heav’nly plain;
Majestic grandeur! From the zephyr’s wing,
Exhales the incense of the blooming spring.

Soft purl the streams, the birds renew their notes,
And through the air their mingled music floats.
Through all the heav’ns what beauteous dies are spread!
But the west glories in the deepest red:

So may our breasts with ev’ry virtue glow,
The living temples of our God below!
Fill’d with the praise of him who gives the light,
And draws the sable curtains of the night,

Let placid slumbers sooth each weary mind,
At morn to wake more heav’nly, more refin’d;
So shall the labours of the day begin
More pure, more guarded from the snares of sin.

Night’s leaden sceptre seals my drowsy eyes,
Then cease, my song, till fair Aurora rise.

The third and final offering from Wheatley is . . .

Ode To Neptune
On Mrs. W———‘s Voyage to England.

I.
WHILE raging tempests shake the shore,
While AElus’ thunders round us roar,
And sweep impetuous o’er the plain
Be still, O tyrant of the main;
Nor let thy brow contracted frowns betray,
While my Susanna skims the wat’ry way.

II.
The Pow’r propitious hears the lay,
The blue-ey’d daughters of the sea
With sweeter cadence glide along,
And Thames responsive joins the song.
Pleas’d with their notes Sol sheds benign his ray,
And double radiance decks the face of day.

III.
To court thee to Britannia’s arms
Serene the climes and mild the sky,
Her region boasts unnumber’d charms,
Thy welcome smiles in ev’ry eye.
Thy promise, Neptune keep, record my pray’r,
Not give my wishes to the empty air.

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You’ve just listened to Phillis Wheatley the Fourth and Final Poet of A FORCE OF POETS.

Theme music is through the courtesy of QubeSounds at PixaBay.

The Three Fifty-seven is written and produced by William Spear.

Thank you for listening.

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