Her locks swim in dishevelled wildness o'er
His shoulders, streaming to his waist and more;
While on and on, strong as a rolling flood,
His sweeping footsteps part the silent wood."

It is curious and interesting to trace the growth of individuality and
race consciousness in this group of poets. Jupiter Hammon's verses were
almost entirely religious exhortations. Only very seldom does Phillis
Wheatley sound a native note. Four times in single lines she refers to
herself as "Afric's muse." In a poem of admonition addressed to the
students at the "University of Cambridge in New England" she refers to
herself as follows:

"Ye blooming plants of human race divine,
An Ethiop tells you 'tis your greatest foe."

But one looks in vain for some outburst or even complaint against the
bondage of her people, for some agonizing cry about her native land. In
two poems she refers definitely to Africa as her home, but in each
instance there seems to be under the sentiment of the lines a feeling of
almost smug contentment at her own escape therefrom. In the poem, "On
Being Brought from Africa to America," she says:

"'Twas mercy brought me from my pagan land,
Taught my benighted soul to understand
That there's a God and there's a Saviour too;
Once I redemption neither sought or knew.
Some view our sable race with scornful eye,
'Their color is a diabolic dye.'
Remember, Christians, Negroes black as Cain,