Memoir and Poems of Phillis Wheatley/The Loss of Female Character
THE LOSS OF FEMALE CHARACTER.
See that fallen Princess! her splendor is gone—
The pomp of her morning is over;
Her day-star of pleasure refuses to dawn,
She wanders a nocturnal rover.
Alas! she resembles Jerusalem's fall,
The fate of that wonderful city:
When grief with astonishment rung from the wall,
Instead of the heart cheering ditty.
When music was silent, no more to be rung,
When Sion wept over her daughter;
On grief 's drooping willow their harps they were hung.
When pendent o'er Babylon's water.
She looks like some Star that has fall'n from her sphere,
No more by her cluster surrounded;
Her comrades of pleasure refuse her to cheer,
And leave her dethron'd and confounded.
She looks like some Queen who has boasted in vain,
Whose diamond refuses to glitter;
Deserted by those who once bow'd in her train,
Whose flight to her soul must be bitter.
She looks like the twilight, her sun sunk away,
He sets; but to rise again never!
Like the Eve, with a blush bids farewell to the day,
And darkness conceals her forever.