Phillis Wheatley (1753–1784). Poems on Various Subjects. 1773.

To a Lady on her remarkable Preservation in a Hurricane in North-Carolina

THOUGH thou did’st hear the tempest from afar,

And felt’st the horrors of the wat’ry war,

To me unknown, yet on this peaceful shore

Methinks I hear the storm tumultuous roar,

And how stern Boreas with impetuous hand

Compell’d the Nereids to usurp the land.

Reluctant rose the daughters of the main,

And slow ascending glided o’er the plain,

Till Æolus in his rapid chariot drove

In gloomy grandeur from the vault above:

Furious he comes. His winged sons obey

Their frantic sire, and madden all the sea.

The billows rave, the wind’s fierce tyrant roars,

And with his thund’ring terrors shakes the shores:

Broken by waves the vessel’s frame is rent,

And strows with planks the wat’ry element.

But thee, Maria, a kind Nereid’s shield

Preserv’d from sinking, and thy form upheld:

And sure some heav’nly oracle design’d

At that dread crisis to instruct thy mind

Things of eternal consequence to weigh,

And to thine heart just feelings to convey

Of things above, and of the future doom,

And what the births of the dread world to come.

From tossing seas I welcome thee to land.

“Resign her, Nereid,” ’twas thy God’s command.

Thy spouse late buried, as thy fears conceiv’d,

Again returns, thy fears are all reliev’d:

Thy daughter blooming with superior grace

Again thou see’st, again thine arms embrace;

O come, and joyful show thy spouse his heir,

And what the blessings of maternal care!