On The Death of Mr. Snider Murder’d By Richardson by Phillis Wheatley
In heavens eternal court it was decreed How the first martyr for the cause should bleed To clear the country of the hated brood He whet his courage for the common good Long hid before, a vile infernal here Prevents Achilles in his mid career Where’er this fury darts his Pois’nous breath All are endanger’d to the shafts of death The generous Sires beheld the fatal wound Saw their young champion gasping on the ground They rais’d him up. but to each present ear What martial glories did his tongue declare The wretch appal’d no longer can despise But from the Striking victim turns his eyes – When this young martial genius did appear The Tory cheifs no longer could forbear. Ripe for destruction, see the wretches doom He waits the curses of the age to come In vain he flies, by Justice Swiftly chaced With unexpected infamy disgraced Be Richardson for ever banish’d here The grand Usurpers bravely vaunted Heir. We bring the body from the watry bower To lodge it where it shall remove no more. Snider behold with what Majestic Love The Illustrious retinue begins to move With Secret rage fair freedoms foes beneath See in thy corse ev’n Majesty in Death.
Phillis Wheatley (1753-84), a negro poetess, also an American poet or Afro-American poet, and an English Colonial poet, . She was born in Africa (in Gambia or Senegal) andwas aptured by slave traders at the age of eight, she was sold to a family living in Boston, Mass., whose name she bears. While serving as a maid-servant to her proprietor's wife, she showed an unusual facility with languages. She began writing poetry at the age of thirteen, using as models Britishpoets of the time, especially Alexander Popeand Thomas Gray). In 1773 she accompanied a member of the Wheatley family to England, where she gained widespread attentionin literary circles. She subsequently returned toBoston. Her best-known poems are "To the University of Cambridge in New England" (1767), In all honestly Phillis Wheatley should rather be considered English than an Afro-American poet but the exact classification of who she was would depend on the political and cultural views, and biases, of the "classifier.
