To Captain H⁠⸺⁠d, of the 65th Regiment

Say, muse divine, can hostile scenes delight
The warrior’s bosom in the fields of fight?
Lo! here the Christian and the hero join
With mutual grace to form the man divine.
In H⁠⸺⁠d see with pleasure and surprise,
Where valour kindles, and where virtue lies:
Go, hero brave, still grace the post of fame,
And add new glories to thine honour’d name,
Still to the field, and still to virtue true:
Britannia glories in no son like you.

Where this text comes from

First published in Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773). First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established. [1]

Structure read from the source's markup; the words have not been compared against a page scan. Last checked 2026-08-14.

Taken from Standard Ebooks, standardebooks/phillis-wheatley_poems-on-various-subjects-religious-and-moral, poems-on-various-subjects-religious-and-moral.xhtml. Rights: public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931).

Earlier sources (3)

This poem as JSON or plain text. Line anchors #L1–#L10.

Cite this poem

Phillis Wheatley (1753?–1784). “To Captain H⁠⸺⁠d, of the 65th Regiment.” First published in Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773). Text: Poem Index, https://poemindex.org/phillis-wheatley/to-captain-h-d-of-the-65th-regiment/. Append #L14 to cite line 14, or #L4-L9 for lines 4–9.

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