May be refined, and join th' angelic train."

In the poem addressed to the Earl of Dartmouth, she speaks of freedom and
makes a reference to the parents from whom she was taken as a child, a
reference which cannot but strike the reader as rather unimpassioned:

"Should you, my lord, while you peruse 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 labor in my parents' breast?
Steel'd was that soul and by no misery mov'd
That from a father seiz'd his babe belov'd;
Such, such my case. And can I then but pray
Others may never feel tyrannic sway?"

The bulk of Phillis Wheatley's work consists of poems addressed to people
of prominence. Her book was dedicated to the Countess of Huntington, at
whose house she spent the greater part of her time while in England. On
his repeal of the Stamp Act, she wrote a poem to King George III, whom she
saw later; another poem she wrote to the Earl of Dartmouth, whom she knew.
A number of her verses were addressed to other persons of distinction.
Indeed, it is apparent that Phillis was far from being a democrat. She was
far from being a democrat not only in her social ideas but also in her
political ideas; unless a religious meaning is given to the closing lines
of her ode to General Washington, she was a decided royalist: