"On Being Brought from Africa to America"

 

              'T WAS 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 color is a diabolic dye.'
               Remember, Christians, Negroes black as Cain
               May be refined, and join the angelic train.

--Phillis Wheatley, Poems (1773)