Read the poem below, "To the Right Honorable William, Earl of Dartmouth" (1773) by Phillis Wheatley; then answer the question that follows.
Should you, my lord, while you pursue my song,
Wonder from whence my love of Freedom sprung,
Whence flow these wishes for the common good,
By feeling hearts alone best understood,
I, young in life, by seeming cruel fate
Was snatch'd from Afric's fancy'd happy seat:
What pangs excruciating must molest,
What sorrows labour in my parent's breast?
Steel'd was the soul and by no misery mov'd
That from a father seiz'd his babe belov'd.
Such, such my case. And can I then but pray
Others may never feel tyrannic sway?
By constructing her poem as an exchange with a specific person, the poet represents freedom and slavery as:
