Poems by the most deservedly admired Mrs. Katherine Philips, the matchless Orinda ; to which is added Monsieur Corneille's Pompey & Horace, tragedies ; with several other translations out of French.
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Title
Poems by the most deservedly admired Mrs. Katherine Philips, the matchless Orinda ; to which is added Monsieur Corneille's Pompey & Horace, tragedies ; with several other translations out of French.
Author
Philips, Katherine, 1631-1664.
Publication
London :: Printed by J.M. for H. Herringman ...,
1667.
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"Poems by the most deservedly admired Mrs. Katherine Philips, the matchless Orinda ; to which is added Monsieur Corneille's Pompey & Horace, tragedies ; with several other translations out of French." In the digital collection Early English Books Online 2. https://name.umdl.umich.edu/A54716.0001.001. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed May 24, 2024.
Pages
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On the Death of Mrs Katherine Philips.
CRuel Disease! Ah could it not sufficeThy old and constant spight to exerciseAgainst the gentlest and the fairest sex,Which still thy Depredations most do vex?Where still thy malice most of all(Thy malice or thy lust) does on the fairest fall?And in them most assault the fairest place,The Throne of Empress Beauty, even the Face?There was enough of that here to asswage(One would have thought) either thy Lust or Rage:Wast not enough, when thou, Profane Disease,Didst on this glorious Temple seize,Wast not enough, like a wild zealot there,All the rich outward ornaments to tear,Deface the Innocent Pride of beauteous Images?Wast not enough thus rudely to defile,But thou must quite destroy the goodly Pile?And thy unbounded Sacrilege commitOn the inward Holyest Holy of her Wit?Cruel Disease! there thou mistook'st thy Power;No Mine of Death can that Devour;On her Embalmed Name it will abideAn Everlasting Pyramide,As high as Heaven the Top, as Earth the Basis wide.
2.
All Ages past, Record; all Countrys nowIn various kinds such equal Beauties show,That even Judge Paris would not knowOn whom the Golden Apple to bestow.Though Goddesses to his sentence did submit,Women and Lovers would appeal from it;Nor durst he say, of all the female raceThis is the sovereign Face.And some (though these be of a kind that's Rare,That's much, oh much less frequent then the Fair)So equally renown'd for virtue are,That it the Mother of the Gods might pose,When the best Woman for her guide she chose,
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But if Apollo should designA Woman Laureat to make,Without dispute he would Orinda take,Though Sappho and the famous NineStood by, and did repine.To be a Princess or a QueenIs Great, but 'tis a Greatness always seen,The World did never but two Women knowWho, one by fraud, the other by wit did riseTo the two tops of Spiritual dignities;One Female Pope of old, one Female Poet now.
3.
Of Female Poets who had names of old,Nothing is shewn, but onely told,And all we hear of them, perhaps may beMale Flattery onely, and Male Poetry;Few minutes did their Beauties Lightning wast,The Thunder of their voice did longer last,But that too soon was pasteThe certain proofs of our Orinda's WitIn her own lasting characters are writ,And they will long my praise of them survive,Though long perhaps too that may live.The trade of Glory managed by the penThough great it be, and every where is found,Does bring in but small profit to us men;'Tis by the number of the sharers drown'd,Orinda in the female Coasts of fameEngrosses all the Goods of a Poetique name,She does no Partner with her see;Does all the Business there Alone which weAre forced to carry on by a whole company.
4
But Wit's like a Luxnriant Vine,Ʋnless to Virtues prop it join,Firm and erect towards Heaven bound,Though it with beauteous leaves and pleasant fruit be crown'dIt lies deform'd, and rotting on the ground.
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Now shame and blushes on us allWho our own Sex superiour call;Orinda does our boasting Sex out-do,Not in wit only, but in virtue too:She does above our best examples rise,In hate of vice, and scorn of vanities.Never did spirit of the manly make,And dipt all o're in Learnings sacred Lake,A temper more invulnerable take;No violent passion could an entrance findInto the tender goodness of her mind:Through walls of stone those furious bullets mayForce their impetuous way;When her soft breast they hit, damped and dead they lay.
5.
The fame of friendship, which so long had toldOf three or four illustrious Names of old,Till hoarse and weary of the tale she grew,Rejoyces now to have got a new,A new, and more surprising storyOf fair Lucasia and Orinda's glory.As when a prudent man does once perceiveThat in some forreign Country he must live,The Language and the Manners he does striveTo understand and practise here,That he may come no stranger there;So well Orinda did her self prepare,In this much different Clime for her remove,To the glad world of Poetry and Love;There all the blest do but one body grow,And are made one too with their glorious Head,Whom there triumphantly they wed,After the secret Contract past below;There Love into Identity does go,'Tis the first unities Monarchique Throne,The Centre that knits all, where the great Three's but One.
Abraham Cowley.
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