ராஜபார்வை - RAJAPAARVAI

 

On Virtue

- Phillis Wheatley

 

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 heaven-born soul with her converse,

Then seek, then court her for her promised bliss.

 

Auspicious queen, thine heavenly pinions spread,

And lead celestial Chastity along;

Lo! now her sacred retinue descends,

Arrayed 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 an higher appellation still,

Teach me a better strain, a nobler lay,

O Thou, enthroned with Cherubs in the realms of day!

 

**

Phillis Wheatley (1753–1784)

Phillis Wheatley Peters was one of the best-known poets in pre-19th century America. She was enslaved and educated in the household of a prominent Boston commercialist John Wheatley. We could say that she was an early proof that the blacks could be both artistic and intellectual. Her name became a household word among literate colonists and her achievements served as catalyst for the antislavery movement.

When she was about seven years old “a slender, frail female child ...  she was seized from Senegal/Gambia, West Africa and was transported to the Boston docks with a shipment of “refugee” slaves. In the month of August 1761, Susanna Wheatley, wife of a prominent Boston tailor John Wheatley, “in want of a domestic,” purchased the the girl for a trifle. Though she was enslaved by purchase, the Wheatleys, including their son Nathaniel and their daughter Mary, taught her to read and write. She read widely.

Her first poem “To the University of Cambridge in New England” was revealing her spirit that yearned for the intellectual challenge of a more academic atmosphere. Her later work, the ‘Whitefield elegy’ brought her national renown. By the time she was 18, Wheatley had gathered a collection of 28 poems .

She and  Nathaniel left for London on May 8, 1771. The now-celebrated poetess was welcomed by several abolitionist dignitaries, philanthropists including John Thorton, and Benjamin Franklin. The first edition of her Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, (1773) was perhaps the first volume of poetry by an African American published in modern times. In her poems, in addition to classical and neoclassical techniques, Wheatley applied biblical symbolism to evangelize and to comment on slavery.

On 1^st April 1778, she married John Peters and her married life was not so prosperous. Wheatley was suffering from a chronic asthma condition for long and she died, uncared for and alone, on December 5, 1784,.

In the past decade, Wheatley scholars have uncovered her poems, letters, and more facts about her life and her association with 18th-century Black abolitionists. They have also charted her notable use of classicism and have explicated the sociological intent of her biblical allusions. The research and interpretation of her works have proved Wheatley Peter’s disdain for the institution of slavery and her use of art to undermine its practice.

(Adopted and modified from: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/phillis-wheatley—Original by Sondra A. O’Neale, Emory University.)