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, Negros, black as Cain,
May be refin'd, and join th' angelic train.
---Phillis Wheatley
---found in The Poems of Phillis Wheatley: Revised and Enlarged Edition (1989; this poem originally published in Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773 edition))