{
 "id": "phillis-wheatley/on-recollection",
 "title": "On Recollection",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Phillis Wheatley",
 "poet_slug": "phillis-wheatley",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral",
 "book_slug": "poems-on-various-subjects-religious-and-moral",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 18,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1773,
  "venue": "Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://github.com/standardebooks/phillis-wheatley_poems-on-various-subjects-religious-and-moral"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/phillis-wheatley_poems-on-various-subjects-religious-and-moral",
  "file": "poems-on-various-subjects-religious-and-moral.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/409",
   "https://archive.org/details/poemsonvarioussu273whea",
   "https://archive.org/details/poemsofphilliswh00whea_1"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-14"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 50,
  "n_stanzas": 6,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 53,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Mneme begin. Inspire, ye sacred nine,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Your vent’rous Afric in her great design.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Mneme, immortal pow’r, I trace thy spring:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Assist my strains, while I thy glories sing:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The acts of long departed years, by thee",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Recover’d, in due order rang’d we see:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thy pow’r the long-forgotten calls from night,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That sweetly plays before the fancy’s sight.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Mneme in our nocturnal visions pours",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The ample treasure of her secret stores;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Swift from above the wings her silent flight",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Through Phoebe’s realms, fair regent of the night;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And, in her pomp of images display’d,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To the high-raptur’d poet gives her aid,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Through the unbounded regions of the mind,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Diffusing light celestial and refin’d.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The heav’nly phantom paints the actions done",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By ev’ry tribe beneath the rolling sun.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Mneme, enthron’d within the human breast,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Has vice condemn’d, and ev’ry virtue blest.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "How sweet the sound when we her plaudit hear?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sweeter than music to the ravish’d ear,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sweeter than Maro’s entertaining strains",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Resounding through the groves, and hills, and plains.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But how is Mneme dreaded by the race,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who scorn her warnings and despise her grace?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By her unveil’d each horrid crime appears,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Her awful hand a cup of wormwood bears.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Days, years mispent, O what a hell of woe!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hers the worst tortures that our souls can know.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Now eighteen years their destin’d course have run,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "In fast succession round the central sun.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "How did the follies of that period pass",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Unnotic’d, but behold them writ in brass!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In Recollection see them fresh return,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And sure ’tis mine to be asham’d, and mourn.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "O Virtue, smiling in immortal green,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Do thou exert thy pow’r, and change the scene;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Be thine employ to guide my future days,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And mine to pay the tribute of my praise.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Of Recollection such the pow’r enthron’d",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "In ev’ry breast, and thus her pow’r is own’d.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The wretch, who dar’d the vengeance of the skies,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "At last awakes in horror and surprise,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By her alarm’d, he sees impending fate,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He howls in anguish, and repents too late.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But O! what peace, what joys are hers t’ impart",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To ev’ry holy, ev’ry upright heart!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thrice blest the man, who, in her sacred shrine,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Feels himself shelter’d from the wrath divine!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}