Transcript

'On being brought from Africa to America'
(poem by Phillis Wheatley)
Reproduced in The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa, the African
(1814 edition), p. 446

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On being brought from AFRICA to AMERICA.

'TWAS mercy brought me from my Pagan land,
Taught my benighted soul to understand
That there's a God, that there's a Saviour too:
Once I redemption neither sought nor knew.
Some view our sable race with scornful eye,
" Their colour is a diabolic die."
Remember, Christians, Negroes, black as Cain,
May be refin'd, and join th' angelic train.
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