The text comes from Philips’s Poems by the Most Deservedly Admired Mrs. Katherine Philips, the Matchless Orinda (1667).
| Religion, which true Policy befriends, | ||
| Design’d by God to serve Man’s noblest ends, | ||
| Is by that old Deceiver’s subtle play | ||
| Made the chief party in its own decay, | ||
| 5 | And meets that Eagles destiny, whose breast | |
| Felt the same shaft which his own feathers drest. | ||
| For that great Enemy of Souls perceiv’d, | ||
| The notion of a Deity was weav’d | ||
| So closely in Man’s Soul; to ruine that, | ||
| 10 | He must at once the World depopulate. | |
| But as those Tyrants who their Wills pursue, | ||
| If they expound old Laws, need make no new: | ||
| So he advantage takes of Nature’s light, | ||
| And raises that to a bare useless height; | ||
| 15 | Or while we seek for Truth, he in the Quest | |
| Mixes a Passion, or an Interest, | ||
| To make us lose it; that, I know not how, | ||
| ’Tis not our Practice, but our Quarrel now. | ||
| As in the Moon’s Eclipse some Pagans thought | ||
| 20 | Their barbarous Clamours her deliverance wrought: | |
| So we suppose that Truth oppressed lies, | ||
| And needs a Rescue by our Enmities. | ||
| But ’tis Injustice, and the Mind’s Disease, | ||
| To think of gaining Truth by losing Peace. | ||
| 25 | Knowledge and Love, if true, do still unite; | |
| God’s Love and Knowledge are both Infinite. | ||
| And though indeed Truth does delight to lie | ||
| At some Remoteness from a Common Eye; | ||
| Yet ’tis not in a Thunder or a Noise, | ||
| 30 | But in soft Whispers and the stiller Voice. | |
| Why should we then Knowledge so rudely treat, | ||
| Making our weapon what was meant our meat? | ||
| ’Tis Ignorance that makes us quarrel so; | ||
| The Soul that’s dark will be contracted too. | ||
| 35 | Chimæra’s make a noise, swelling and vain, | |
| And soon resolve to their own smoak again. | ||
| But a true Light the spirit doth dilate, | ||
| And robs it of its proud and sullen state; | ||
| Makes Love admir’d because ’tis understood, | ||
| 40 | And makes us Wise because it makes us Good. | |
| ’Tis to a right Prospect of things that we | ||
| Owe our Uprightness and our Charity. | ||
| For who resists a beam when shining bright, | ||
| Is not a Sinner of a common height. | ||
| 45 | That state’s a forfeiture, and helps are spent, | |
| Not more a Sin, than ’tis a Punishment. | ||
| The Soul which sees things in their Native frame, | ||
| Without Opinion’s Mask or Custom’s name, | ||
| Cannot be clogg’d to Sense, or count that high | ||
| 50 | Which hath its Estimation from a Lie. | |
| (Mean sordid things, which by mistake we prize, | ||
| And absent covet, but enjoy’d despise.) | ||
| But scorning these hath robb’d them of their art, | ||
| Either to swell or to subdue the Heart; | ||
| 55 | And learn’d that generous frame to be above | |
| The World in hopes, below it all in love: | ||
| Touch’d with Divine and Inward Life doth run, | ||
| Not resting till it hath its Centre won; | ||
| Moves steadily until it safe doth lie | ||
| 60 | I’th’ Root of all its Immortality; | |
| And resting here hath yet activity | ||
| To grow more like unto the Deity; | ||
| Good, Universal, Wise and Just as he, | ||
| (The same in kind, though diff’ring in degree) | ||
| 65 | Till at the last ’tis swallow’d up and grown | |
| With God and with the whole Creation one; | ||
| It self, so small a part, i’th’ Whole is lost, | ||
| And Generals have Particulars engrost. | ||
| That dark contracted Personality, | ||
| 70 | Like Mists before the Sun, will from it flie. | |
| And then the Soul, one shining sphear, at length | ||
| With true Love’s wisdom fill’d and purged strength, | ||
| Beholds her highest good with open face, | ||
| And like him all the World she can embrace. |