Page:Memoir and poems of Phillis Wheatley, a native African and a slave.djvu/105

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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 bosoms with incessant woe,

Let Recollection take a tender part,

Assuage the raging tortures of your heart,

Still the wild tempests of tumultuous grief,

And pour the heavenly nectar of relief:

Suspend the sigh, dear Sir, and check the groan,—

Divinely bright your daughters virtues shone:

How free from scornful pride her gentle mind,

Which ne'er its aid to indigence declined!

Expanding free, it sought the means to prove

Unfailing charity, unbounded love!

She unreluctant flies, to see no more

Her dear loved parents on earth's dusky shore:

Impatient heaven'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 fur the skies,

Where new creations feast her wondering eyes.

To heaven's high mandate, cheerfully resigned,

She mounts, and leaves the rolling globe behind;