"AN ANSWER to the Rebus, by the Author of these POEMS"
By Phillis Wheatley

  • Transcription, correction, editorial commentary, and markup by Students of Marymount University, James West, Amy Ridderhof
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Sources

London : Printed for A. Bell, 1773Page images are sourced from two copies of the first edition housed in the Library of Congress.Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Humanities Text Initiative, 1999Online SGML text from the University of Michigan HTI. SGML markup edited to conform to LiC parameters, including changes to element and attribute case, ligatures, and other special html characters.

Editorial Statements

Research informing these annotations draws on publicly-accessible resources, with links provided where possible. Annotations have also included common knowledge, defined as information that can be found in multiple reliable sources. If you notice an error in these annotations, please contact lic.open.anthology@gmail.com.

Original spelling and capitalization is retained, though the long s has been silently modernized and ligatured forms are not encoded.

Hyphenation has not been retained, except where necessary for the sense of the word.

Page breaks have been retained. Catchwords, signatures, and running headers have not. Where pages break in the middle of a word, the complete word has been indicated prior to the page beginning.

Materials have been transcribed from and checked against first editions, where possible. See the Sources section.

Citation

Wheatley, Phillis. "AN ANSWER to the Rebus, by the Author of these POEMS". Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, Printed for A. Bell, 1773 , p 124 . Literature in Context: An Open Anthology. http://anthology.lib.virginia.edu/work/Wheatley/wheatley-rebus-answer. Accessed: 2023-02-06T20:18:20.194Z
124 AN ANSWER to the Rebus, by the Author of these POEMS, 1THE poet asks, and Phillis can't refuse 2To shew th'obedience of the Infant muse. 3She knows the Quail of most inviting taste 4Fed Israel's army in the dreary waste; 5And what's on Britain's royal standard borne, 6But the tall, graceful, rampant Unicorn? 7The Emerald with a vivid verdure glows 8Among the gems which regal crowns compose; 9Boston's a town, polite and debonair, 10To which the beaux and beauteous nymphs repair, 11Each Helen strikes the mind with sweet surprise, 12While living lightning flashes from her eyes, 13See young Euphorbus of the Dardan line 14By Menelaus' hand to death resign: 15The well known peer of popular applause 16Is C--m zealous to support our laws. 17Quebec now vanquish'd must obey, 18She too must annual tribute pay 19To Britain of immortal fame, 20And add new glory to her name.

Footnotes