"To the Right Honorable William, Earl of Dartmouth"
By Phillis Wheatley (1773)
Cited from: (Davis, 1996, p. 26)
Should you, my lord, while you pursue my song,
Wonder from whence my love of Freedom sprung,
Whence flow these wishes for the common good,
By feeling hearts alone best understood,
I, young in life, by seeming cruel fate
Was snatch'd from Afric's fancy'd happy seat;
What pangs excruciating must molest,
What sorrows labour in my parent's breast?
Steel'd was the soul and by no misery mov'd
That from a father seiz'd this babe belov'd.
Such, such my case. And can I then but pray
Others may never feel tyrannic sway.
This poem was published in London in 1773, part of Phillis Wheatley's Poems on Various Subjects: Religious and Moral. The women who would later be called Phillis Wheatley, was born in Africa, captured by slave traders at the age of eight, and sold to the Wheatley family of Boston. She was recognized as a child prodigy, and by age thirteen, Phillis was writing poetry based on such English poets as Alexander Pope and translating from ancient Greek. (Davis, 1996, p. 26-27)
"Maryland! My Maryland"
By James Ryder Randall
April, 1861
Cited from: (Davis, 1996, p. 171-172)
The despot's heel is on thy shore,
Maryland!
His torch is at thy temple door,
Maryland!
Avenge the patriotic gore
That flecked the streets of Baltimore.
And be the battle queen of yore,
Maryland! My Maryland!
I hear the distant thunder-hum,
Maryland!
The Old Line's bugle, fife, and drum,
Maryland!
She is not dead, nor deaf, nor dumb-
Huzza! she spurns the Northern scum!
She breathes! she burns! she'll come! she'll come!
Maryland! My Maryland!
"Shiloh" (excerpt)
By Herman Melville
April, 1862
Cited from: (Davis, 1996, p. 232-233)
Skimming lightly, wheeling still,
The swallows fly low
Over the field in clouded days,
The forest field of Shiloh-
Over the field where April rain
Solaced the parched one stretched in pain
Through the pause of night
That followed the Sunday fight
Around the church of Shiloh-
The church so lone, the log-built one,
That echoed to many a parting groan
And natural prayer
Of dying foemen mingled there-
Foemen at morn, but friends at eve-
Fame or country least their care:
(What like a bullet can undeceive!)
But now they lie low,
While over them the swallows skim,
And all is hushed at Shiloh.