The Full Text of “To the University of Cambridge, in New England”
1While an intrinsic ardor prompts to write,
2The muses promise to assist my pen;
3’Twas not long since I left my native shore
4The land of errors, and Egyptian gloom:
5Father of mercy, ’twas thy gracious hand
6Brought me in safety from those dark abodes.
7 Students, to you ’tis giv’n to scan the heights
8Above, to traverse the ethereal space,
9And mark the systems of revolving worlds.
10Still more, ye sons of science ye receive
11The blissful news by messengers from heav’n,
12How Jesus’ blood for your redemption flows.
13See him with hands out-stretcht upon the cross;
14Immense compassion in his bosom glows;
15He hears revilers, nor resents their scorn:
16What matchless mercy in the Son of God!
17When the whole human race by sin had fall’n,
18He deign’d to die that they might rise again,
19And share with him in the sublimest skies,
20Life without death, and glory without end.
21 Improve your privileges while they stay,
22Ye pupils, and each hour redeem, that bears
23Or good or bad report of you to heav’n.
24Let sin, that baneful evil to the soul,
25By you be shunn’d, nor once remit your guard;
26Suppress the deadly serpent in its egg.
27Ye blooming plants of human race divine,
28An Ethiop tells you ’tis your greatest foe;
29Its transient sweetness turns to endless pain,
30And in immense perdition sinks the soul.
The Full Text of “To the University of Cambridge, in New England”
1While an intrinsic ardor prompts to write,
2The muses promise to assist my pen;
3’Twas not long since I left my native shore
4The land of errors, and Egyptian gloom:
5Father of mercy, ’twas thy gracious hand
6Brought me in safety from those dark abodes.
7 Students, to you ’tis giv’n to scan the heights
8Above, to traverse the ethereal space,
9And mark the systems of revolving worlds.
10Still more, ye sons of science ye receive
11The blissful news by messengers from heav’n,
12How Jesus’ blood for your redemption flows.
13See him with hands out-stretcht upon the cross;
14Immense compassion in his bosom glows;
15He hears revilers, nor resents their scorn:
16What matchless mercy in the Son of God!
17When the whole human race by sin had fall’n,
18He deign’d to die that they might rise again,
19And share with him in the sublimest skies,
20Life without death, and glory without end.
21 Improve your privileges while they stay,
22Ye pupils, and each hour redeem, that bears
23Or good or bad report of you to heav’n.
24Let sin, that baneful evil to the soul,
25By you be shunn’d, nor once remit your guard;
26Suppress the deadly serpent in its egg.
27Ye blooming plants of human race divine,
28An Ethiop tells you ’tis your greatest foe;
29Its transient sweetness turns to endless pain,
30And in immense perdition sinks the soul.
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“To the University of Cambridge, in New England” Introduction
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"To the University of Cambridge, in New England" is an early poem by Phillis Wheatley, the first Black woman to publish English-language poetry. Her first (and only) collection, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, was printed in 1773. In this poem, Wheatley, who was only around 14 years old when she wrote the first draft, implores a group of new Harvard students to be good Christians—and never to forget the magnitude of Jesus's sacrifice for humankind. The poem is a kind of imagined sermon or commencement address, in which Wheatley demonstrates her authority and her precocious understanding of poetry.
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“To the University of Cambridge, in New England” Summary
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Since I have this natural passion for poetry, the Greek goddesses of inspiration promise to inspire my writing. It wasn't long ago that I left my native Africa, a land full of human error and the misery of slavery (of the kind caused by the Egyptians in the Bible). Merciful Lord, it was your loving hand that ensured my safety when I was enslaved and taken from Africa.
You students of Harvard—you are tasked with surveying the heights of human knowledge, traveling through the heavenly realm, and measuring the orbits of the planets. What's more, you next generation of learners, you have already heard the wonderful news told by angels and prophets: that Jesus died in order to save you (and humanity more generally). Picture him, his hands stretched out as he is crucified. Limitless love shines from his heart. He listens to those that hate him without hating them back—what unparalleled kindness from the son of God! When humankind had fallen into sin, he decided to die so that it could rise up again—so that people could live with him in the heavens, sharing a deathless life of infinite glory.
Make the most of your opportunities while you have them, students, and work hard in every hour—because your behavior, good or bad, will be reported to God. Make sure that you reject the corrosive influence of sin, and never let your guard down. Kill the snake of sin before it's even born. You flourishing flowers of our amazing human race, this African warns you that sin is your worst enemy. Sin's brief pleasure soon turns into infinite suffering, and sends people's souls to eternal damnation in Hell.
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“To the University of Cambridge, in New England” Themes
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Gratitude and Redemption
The poem’s speaker, who can be read as Phillis Wheatley herself, addresses students at Harvard University, calling on them to be grateful for the "privileges" that God has afforded them. The speaker argues that these students, and people in general, should always remember Jesus's sacrifice on the cross and reject sinfulness. In doing so, the speaker says, people can stay close to God and avoid "endless pain."
To make her case, the speaker draws a comparison between her own life and the lives of the students. The speaker was born in Africa, the "land of errors and Egyptian gloom." (Scholars debate whether Wheatley is referring to Africa and its peoples, or to the terrible atrocities being committed there by white slave traders.) Her earlier life was spent in "dark abodes," the lack of light signaling evil, ignorance of the divine, and the threat of death—but also the hellish conditions on board the slave ship that brought her to America. But God, the speaker says, saved her by bringing her to America, and she thus remains grateful for his “mercy.”
Wheatley tells her own story in order to put things in perspective, and to inspire similar gratitude to God: the students of Harvard have not had to endure the kind of hardships that Wheatley has. Their life, comparatively, is full of "privileges."
For one thing, they’ve been given the opportunity to learn, something the poem presents as heavenly and blissful. The students are taught "to traverse the ethereal space"—which can mean both to reach the heights of human understanding and to understand the beauty of God's designs for the world—through disciplines from astronomy to geometry to theology.
The speaker reminds these fortunate students not to forget about "the blissful news"—that humanity was saved by Jesus through his sacrifice. Much of their studies would have had a religious framework, too, so it's also something that they should be learning to understand and appreciate more deeply. In other words, the Son of God died in order that humankind might live—including those who happen to be studying at Harvard in the 18th century!
Such "privileges," the speaker says, should not be taken for granted. Students should be grateful for God's mercy, and their lives should always be lived for God. Otherwise, humankind will only get lost in sin. The students' access to good education is afforded to them by God and, in the poem's view, should be received with gratitude and commitment in the service of God.
That's why the poem asks the students to acknowledge how Jesus died so that the human race "might rise again." The speaker ultimately challenges the students to be more righteous. Without "suppress[ing]" sinfulness, the students risk eternal punishment and damnation. The temporary "sweetness" of sin quickly turns to "endless pain," and Jesus's sacrifice will have been in vain. The poem implies that this is true for all people, urging them to be good Christians in "each hour" of their lives.
- See where this theme is active in the poem.
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “To the University of Cambridge, in New England”
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Lines 1-2
While an intrinsic ardor prompts to write,
The muses promise to assist my pen;The poem begins with an invocation. This is a brief call on the "muses"—ancient Greek goddesses—to grant the poet inspiration and creativity. Many, many famous poets began their work with invocations: John Milton, for example, asked the "heavenly muse" to help him compose Paradise Lost.
This invocation would thus feel pretty conventional—were it not for the fact that it's being made here, not by a standard-issue 18th-century white male poet, but by a young Black woman. Snatched from her family and enslaved when she was only a child, Phillis Wheatley was most likely the first Black woman to publish poetry in print anywhere in the world.
The allusion to the muses, then, signals that the speaker (generally taken as Wheatley herself) knows her poetry. It's clear that she is well-educated and has a passion for poetry: she describes herself as having an "intrinsic ardor" for the form, a God-given longing to write.
In other words, she's standing up for herself with this invocation, implying that she's just as inspired, and just as worthy to call on the muses, as any white male poet.
Alliteration between "prompts," "promise," and "pen" links the speaker's urge to write with the assistance of external forces and the act of writing itself. This connection subtly makes the point that the assistance of the muses need not solely belong to educated white men: this speaker, too, is "prompt[ed]" by divine inspiration. This has implications later on in the poem when the speaker compares her background to those of the students attending Harvard University (to whom this poem is addressed).
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Lines 3-6
’Twas not long since I left my native shore
The land of errors, and
Egyptian
gloom:
Father of mercy, ’twas thy gracious hand
Brought me in safety from those dark abodes. -
Lines 7-9
Students, to you ’tis giv’n to scan the heights
Above, to traverse the ethereal space,
And mark the systems of revolving worlds. -
Lines 10-12
Still more, ye sons of science ye receive
The blissful news by messengers from heav’n,
How Jesus’ blood for your redemption flows. -
Lines 13-16
See him with hands out-stretcht upon the cross;
Immense compassion in his bosom glows;
He hears revilers, nor resents their scorn:
What matchless mercy in the Son of God! -
Lines 17-20
When the whole human race by sin had fall’n,
He deign’d to die that they might rise again,
And share with him in the sublimest skies,
Life without death, and glory without end. -
Lines 21-23
Improve your privileges while they stay,
Ye pupils, and each hour redeem, that bears
Or good or bad report of you to heav’n. -
Lines 24-26
Let sin, that baneful evil to the soul,
By you be shunn’d, nor once remit your guard;
Suppress the deadly serpent in its egg. -
Lines 27-28
Ye blooming plants of human race divine,
An Ethiop tells you ’tis your greatest foe; -
Lines 29-30
Its transient sweetness turns to endless pain,
And in immense perdition sinks the soul.
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“To the University of Cambridge, in New England” Symbols
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The Skies
The "skies," in this poem, symbolize holiness, aspiration, and wisdom.
On the one hand, the skies stand in for Heaven itself. Think about images of angels hanging out in the clouds; it's the same kind of thing here! So, on the one hand, the skies represent holiness, God's majesty, and the promise of the afterlife.
On the other hand, because the "heights above" also represent intellectual aspiration, they're also a symbol of the possibilities of learning. Getting an education means that one can reach beyond the earth into the "skies" of knowledge.
To the speaker, education and religion are complementary: the former only helps people to better understand the latter. That is, learning about astronomy, for example, should only make an individual appreciate God's incredible design skills even more.
Through this combination of intellectual and religious aspiration, the speaker suggests, students can grow like "blooming plants" towards the sky.
- See where this symbol appears in the poem.
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“To the University of Cambridge, in New England” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Alliteration
The poem uses alliteration to link words and concepts together, and to bring its images to vivid life.
One strong example turns up in line 10, when the speaker describes the students she addresses as "sons of science." Here, the alliteration works to make the students appear special—or, at least, especially privileged. The two /s/ sounds link the students to their studies, the phrase ringing out like a special title conferred only on a select few.
Later in the poem, alliteration dramatizes Christ's mercy. The speaker, in an almost preacher-like tone, talks to the students about Jesus:
He hears revilers, nor resents their scorn:
What matchless mercy in the Son of God!The harsh /r/ sounds of "revilers" (or hateful people) and "resents" meet with the gentler /h/ sounds of "He hears"—a contrast between rough and soft that matches the contrast between Christ and his persecutors that these lines describe. The powerfully alliterative "matchless mercy" of the next line speaks to the might of Jesus himself, and the magnitude of his sacrifice for humankind.
Later, the alliterative /d/ of "deign'd to die" in line 18 draws attention to the way that Jesus chose to save humanity through his own death, while the luxurious, silky /s/ sounds of "sublimest skies" in line 19 suggests the divine beauty that awaits Christians in the heavenly afterlife. (And for more on the poem's /s/ sounds, see the Sibilance section of this guide.)
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Allusion
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End-Stopped Line
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Metaphor
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Sibilance
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Apostrophe
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"To the University of Cambridge, in New England" Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Intrinsic
- Ardor
- Muses
- 'Twas
- Thy
- Abodes
- 'Tis
- Giv'n
- Scan
- The Heights
- Traverse
- Ethereal
- Mark
- Ye
- Redemption
- Bosom
- Revilers
- Matchless
- Fall'n
- Deign'd
- Redeem
- Report
- Baneful
- Shunn'd
- Remit
- Guard
- Suppress
- Deadly Serpent
- Ethiop
- Foe
- Transient
- Perdition
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Natural or instinctive.
- See where this vocabulary word appears in the poem.
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “To the University of Cambridge, in New England”
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Form
The poem doesn't use a standard poetic form, but it does use blank verse: lines of unrhymed iambic pentameter. (See the Rhyme Scheme and Meter sections for more on that.) This particular poem uses three stanzas of blank verse, with each new stanza marking a shift in the speaker's argument.
Blank verse is a form with a pretty grand pedigree in English-language poetry. Shakespeare uses blank verse throughout his plays, and Wheatley's major influence John Milton often wrote in blank verse. In choosing blank verse, Wheatley demonstrates her own familiarity with (and mastery of) poetic tradition.
The poem also engages with poetic tradition right at the start, when it calls on the "muses" (the ancient goddesses of inspiration) to "assist" the poet in her composition. Such a call to the gods is known as an invocation—and similar invocations turn up in the work of writers from Homer to Pope. By using an invocation, Wheatley demonstrates that she's educated and well-read—and implicitly questions whether it's only well-to-do white men who deserve the favor of the muses.
Written in the form of a speech to incoming Harvard students, the poem also resembles a sermon or a commencement address. Indeed, the Harvard tradition of a yearly commencement address might have inspired Wheatley to write this poem in the first place.
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Meter
The poem uses blank verse: lines of unrhymed iambic pentameter. In other words, each line uses five iambs, metrical feet with an unstressed-STRESSED (da-DUM) rhythm.
As one example, here is line 16:
What match- | less mer- | cy in | the Son | of God!
Blank verse creates a slow but steady momentum, giving the speaker's sermon-like speech force and authority. Indeed, by using blank verse, Wheatley insists on her own poetic authority.
Blank verse is an important and honored literary tradition in English-language poetry. Shakespeare uses it throughout his plays, and it's the form in which John Milton (one of Wheatley's major influences) wrote his magnum opus, Paradise Lost. By using blank verse here, Wheatley thus demonstrates her own poetic skill and an educated understanding of the form. Sadly, this very mastery is exactly why many of her contemporaries refused to believe that she, a young Black woman from Africa, could have written her poems.
Like many poets who write in blank verse, Wheatley also uses metrical variations. Sometimes, she inverts the first foot, turning it into a trochee (DUM-da)—for instance, in line 7:
Students, | to you | ’tis giv’n | to scan | the heights
The strong initial stress here makes the line more forceful, which fits with it being a direct apostrophe to the students of Harvard. It's attention-grabbing, like someone banging the lectern for emphasis while giving a speech.
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Rhyme Scheme
The poem doesn't have a rhyme scheme, instead opting for blank verse throughout—which is, by definition, unrhymed. This offers the poem a little extra leeway to follow the logic of its philosophical and religious inquiry, rather than bending to the demand for a rhyme.
Unrhymed verse like this was a common and time-honored form during Wheatley's lifetime (and beyond). In choosing this form, she drew inspiration from her great hero John Milton, among others.
However, Wheatley does use an occasional rhyme for effect. The most significant is probably line 12's "flows" with line 14's "glows," which links Jesus's death on the cross with his "immense" love for humankind. In this important, heightened passage, in which Wheatley vividly imagines the Crucifixion, matching sounds help to draw even more attention to her powerful imagery.
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“To the University of Cambridge, in New England” Speaker
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Given the amount of biographical overlap between the first-person "I" of the poem and its author, this poem's speaker is generally understood to be Phillis Wheatley herself: a young African woman enslaved in America. And that makes this poem remarkable! At the time Wheatley was writing, English-language poetry was almost entirely the domain of educated white men: but here is a Black woman instructing just such young men on how to be better Christians. By referring to her African heritage, while simultaneously employing time-honored poetic conventions (e.g., blank verse and the opening invocation), the speaker claims authority as a person and a poet.
The speaker addresses the prospective Harvard students like a preacher, as though she is giving an introductory sermon to those newly enrolled at the university. As someone who has known true suffering—being kidnapped and enslaved, and never seeing her biological parents again—she is better placed than the students to understand the educational and spiritual value of a university degree.
She humbles herself in order to make her point more forcefully, referring to herself as an "Ethiop" (a general term for a person from Africa). This plays with the idea that she is the students' social inferior, while really gesturing towards the fact she has a more clear-eyed perspective on sinfulness—having witnessed it first hand as an enslaved Black woman.
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“To the University of Cambridge, in New England” Setting
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While this poem's speaker addresses students at a particular university—Harvard—the poem itself, written in the form of a speech or lecture, doesn't really have a setting. Still, it's easy to imagine the speaker standing at a podium as she addresses the students, banging her fist for dramatic emphasis.
The speaker does refer to other settings—her passage from Africa as a slave, and the sacred skies of heaven—but these brief references are more rhetorical than descriptive. They're all in service of her overall argument: that the students should appreciate the "privileges" afforded to them, and be thankful to God.
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Literary and Historical Context of “To the University of Cambridge, in New England”
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Literary Context
Phillis Wheatley was the first woman of African descent to be published in English, and it's hard to overstate just how exceptional a figure she is in the history of English-language poetry. She was enslaved in 1761, when only seven or eight years old, and taken from the west coast of Africa to America. There, she was purchased by John and Susana Wheatley, who—very unusually—gave her a classical education. She read writers like Milton, Pope, and Homer, and quickly mastered both the English language and poetry. "To the University" is thought to be her first poem, written when she was only a teenager.
At the family's encouragement, Wheatley was soon being published in newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic. Indeed, she became famous, in spite of the fact that many white people were unable to believe that anyone from Africa—let alone a young woman—was capable of writing such well-crafted poetry. When her first (and only) collection was published in 1773, her British publishers insisted that the book contain testimonials from prominent Americans to vouch for the fact that she really had written these poems. Thomas Jefferson reacted to Wheatley's poetry incredulously, saying that there was "no poetry [...] among the blacks." Others, like Gilbert Imlay, noted that Wheatley was clearly Jefferson's "superior."
While Wheatley was the first Black woman to be published in English, she was certainly not the first woman of African descent to write English-language poetry. Lucy Terry wrote "Bars Fight" in 1746, though it wasn't in print until 1855. Jupiter Hammon was the first African-American poet to be published in English; his "An Evening Thought: Salvation by Christ, with Penitential Cries" first came out in 1761. Francis Williams was another well-known Black poet of the 18th century, though he, unlike Wheatley, had not been enslaved (he was born to free Black parents).
Though Wheatley was not the only poet of African descent in her time, she remains the most famous.
Historical Context
Wheatley's name is composed of two reminders of her life story: Phillis was the name of the slave ship that brought her to America, and Wheatley was the surname of the family who bought her. The Phillis was one of many ships that sailed from the West Coast of Africa to America, transporting kidnapped Africans to new lives of incredible hardship and misery. Wheatley's given African name is lost to history. She was probably born somewhere in the region of modern-day Senegal, Gambia, or Ghana—an area of Africa with strong oral traditions of storytelling and poetry.
Current research suggests that over 12 million Africans were kidnapped from their communities and forced to cross the Atlantic, held in awful and often deadly conditions on board cramped slave ships. Some, like Wheatley, would become domestic servants; many others were forced to labor on farms and plantations.
Wheatley's lifetime coincides with the beginning of the Abolitionist movement, which rejected and resisted slavery. One landmark court case in England ruled that slavery was incompatible with existing English law (with the judge coming to this conclusion with clear reluctance). Abolitionist Granville Sharp, who successfully argued the case and thus dealt a serious blow to the institution of slavery, met Wheatley when she visited England to seek publication for her poems. It is probably no coincidence that she was manumitted—released from slavery—on her return to America shortly thereafter, with Sharp proving a powerful ally.
Wheatley's visit to England took place two years before the American War of Independence, in which the issue of slavery (and its abolition) was a major contributing factor. Wheatley could see the irony that some Americans would cry tyranny against their English oppressors while simultaneously making Black people perform labor for free. She wrote in one letter: "How well the Cry for Liberty, and the reverse Disposition for the Exercise of oppressive Power over others agree—I humbly think it does not require the Penetration of a Philosopher to determine." In other words: you'd have to be especially ignorant not to see the contradiction in calling for liberty on the one hand while being an oppressor on the other.
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More “To the University of Cambridge, in New England” Resources
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External Resources
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Phillis Wheatley's Life — Watch a lively lecture on Wheatley's life from her biographer Vincent Carretta.
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A Short Biography — Learn more about Wheatley's life and work at the Poetry Foundation.
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Wheatley and Granville Sharpe — Read about Wheatley's influential meeting with abolitionist Granville Sharpe.
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Letter to Rev. Occum — Read a letter in which Wheatley discusses slavery.
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The First Edition — See images of the 1773 first edition of Wheatley's poems.
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LitCharts on Other Poems by Phillis Wheatley
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