“Celestial choir! enthron'd in realms of light, Columbia's scenes of glorious toils I write. While freedom's cause her anxious breast alarms, She flashes dreadful in refulgent arms.”

1770s, To His Excellency, George Washington (1775)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Celestial choir! enthron'd in realms of light, Columbia's scenes of glorious toils I write. While freedom's cause her a…" by Phillis Wheatley?
Phillis Wheatley photo
Phillis Wheatley 15
American poet 1753–1784

Related quotes

“Babies sleeping in their mothers' arms were startled by the hiss, and their anxious mothers waking in alarm hugged them closer to their breasts.”

Source: Argonautica (3rd century BC), Book IV. Homeward Bound, Lines 136–138

William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham photo

“While we had France for an enemy, Germany was the scene to employ and baffle her arms.”

William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham (1708–1778) British politician

Speech in the House of Commons (August 1762).

James Beattie photo

“Zealous, yet modest; innocent, though free;
Patient of toil, serene amidst alarms;
Inflexible in faith, invincible in arms.”

James Beattie (1735–1803) Scottish poet, moralist and philosopher

Book i. Stanza 11.
The Minstrel; or, The Progress of Genius (1771)

Junot Díaz photo
Luís de Camões photo

“Arms and the Heroes, who from Lisbon's shore,
Through Seas where sail was never spread before,
Beyond where Ceylon lifts her spicy breast,
And waves her woods above the watery waste,
With prowess more than human forced their way
To the fair kingdoms of the rising day:
What wars they waged, what seas, what dangers passed,
What glorious empire crowned their toils at last!”

Luís de Camões (1524–1580) Portuguese poet

As armas e os Barões assinalados
Que da Ocidental praia Lusitana
Por mares nunca de antes navegados
Passaram ainda além da Taprobana,
Em perigos e guerras esforçados
Mais do que prometia a força humana,
E entre gente remota edificaram
Novo Reino, que tanto sublimaram.
Stanza 1 (as translated by William Julius Mickle, 1776)
Epic poetry, Os Lusíadas (1572), Canto I

Phillis Wheatley photo
Rick Riordan photo

“Glorious transformation! glorious translation! I seem already to behold the wondrous scene.”

Henry Melvill (1798–1871) British academic

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 359.
Context: Glorious transformation! glorious translation! I seem already to behold the wondrous scene. The sea and the land have given up their dead! the quickened myriads have been judged according to their works. And now, an innumerable company, out of all nations and tribes and tongues, ascend with the Mediator towards the kingdom of His Father. Can it be that these, who were born children of earth, who were long enemies to God by wicked works, are to enter the bright scenes of paradise? Yes, He who leads them has washed them in His blood; He who leads them has sanctified them by His Spirit.

Brandon Boyd photo

Related topics