Memoir and Poems of Phillis Wheatley/to Mæcenus
POEMS.
TO MÆCENAS.
Mæcenas, you, beneath the myrtle shade,
Read o'er what poets sung, and shepherds played
What felt those poets, but you feel the same?
Does not your soul possess the sacred flame?
Their noble strains your equal genius shares
In softer language, and diviner airs.
While Homer paints, lo! circumfused in air,
Celestial Gods in mortal forms appear;
Swift as they move, hear each recess rebound;
Heaven quakes, earth trembles, and the shores resound.
Great Sire of verse, before my mortal eyes
The lightnings blaze across the vaulted skies;
And as the thunder shakes the heavenly plains,
A deep-felt horror thrills through all my veins.
When gentler strains demand thy graceful song,
The lengthening line moves languishing along,
When great Patroclus courts Achilles' aid,
The grateful tribute of my tears is paid:
Prone on the shore, he feels the pangs of love,
And stern Pelides' tenderest passions move.
Great Maro's strain in heavenly numbers flows,
The Nine inspire, and all the bosom glows.
Oh! could I rival thine and Virgil's page,
Or claim the Muses with the Mantuan sage;
Soon the same beauties should my mind adorn,
And the same ardors in my soul should burn:
Then should my song in bolder notes arise,
And all my numbers pleasingly surprise:
But here I sit and mourn, a grovelling mind
That fain would mount and ride upon the wind.
Not you, my friend, these plaintive strains become;
Not you, whose bosom is the Muses' home.
When they from towering Helicon retire,
They fan in you the bright, immortal fire;
But I, less happy, cannot raise the song;
The faltering music dies upon my tongue.
The happier Terence[1] all the choir inspired,
His soul replenished, and his bosom fired:
But say, ye Muses, why this partial grace
To one alone of Afric's sable race;
From age to age transmitting thus his name,
With the first glory in the realms of fame?
Thy virtues, great Maecenas! shall be sung
In praise of him from whom those virtues sprung;
While blooming wreaths around thy temples spread,
I'll snatch a laurel from thine honored head,
While you, indulgent, smile upon the deed.
As long as Thames in streams majestic flows,
Or Naiads in their oozy beds repose;
While Phoebus reigns above the starry train;
While bright Aurora purples o'er the main;
So long, great Sir, the Muse thy praise shall sing;
So long thy praise shall make Parnassus ring.
Then grant, Maecenas, thy paternal rays;
Hear me propitious, and defend my lays.
- ↑ He was an African by birth.