The text comes from Philips’s Poems by the Most Deservedly Admired Mrs. Katherine Philips, the Matchless Orinda (1667).
| Adieu dear object of my Love’s excess, | ||
| And with thee all my hopes of happiness, | ||
| With the same fervent and unchanged heart | ||
| Which did it’s whole self once to thee impart, | ||
| 5 | (And which though fortune has so sorely bruis’d, | |
| Would suffer more, to be from this excus’d) | ||
| I to resign thy dear Converse submit, | ||
| Since I can neither keep, nor merit it. | ||
| Thou hast too long to me confined been, | ||
| 10 | Who ruine am without, passion within. | |
| My mind is sunk below thy tenderness, | ||
| And my condition does deserve it less; | ||
| I’m so entangl’d and so lost a thing | ||
| By all the shocks my daily sorrow bring, | ||
| 15 | That would’st thou for thy old Orinda call | |
| Thou hardly could’st unravel her at all. | ||
| And should I thy clear fortunes interline | ||
| With the incessant miseries of mine? | ||
| No, no, I never lov’d at such a rate | ||
| 20 | To tye thee to the rigours of my fate, | |
| As from my obligations thou art free, | ||
| Sure thou shalt be so from my Injury, | ||
| Though every other worthiness I miss, | ||
| Yet I’le at least be generous in this. | ||
| 25 | I’d rather perish without sigh or groan, | |
| Then thou shoul’dst be condemn’d to give me one; | ||
| Nay in my soul I rather could allow | ||
| Friendship should be a sufferer, then thou; | ||
| Go then, since my sad heart has set thee free, | ||
| 30 | Let all the loads and chains remain on me. | |
| Though I be left the prey of sea and wind, | ||
| Thou being happy wilt in that be kind; | ||
| Nor shall I my undoing much deplore, | ||
| Since thou art safe, whom I must value more. | ||
| 35 | Oh! mayst thou ever be so, and as free | |
| From all ills else, as from my company, | ||
| And may the torments thou hast had from it | ||
| Be all that heaven will to thy life permit. | ||
| And that they may thy vertue service do, | ||
| 40 | Mayest thou be able to forgive them too: | |
| But though I must this sharp submission learn, | ||
| I cannot yet unwish thy dear concern. | ||
| Not one new comfort I expect to see, | ||
| I quit my Joy, hope, life, and all but thee; | ||
| 45 | Nor seek I thence ought that may discompose | |
| That mind where so serene a goodness grows. | ||
| I ask no inconvenient kindness now, | ||
| To move thy passion, or to cloud thy brow; | ||
| And thou wilt satisfie my boldest plea | ||
| 50 | By some few soft remembrances of me, | |
| Which may present thee with this candid thought, | ||
| I meant not all the troubles that I brought. | ||
| Own not what Passion rules, and Fate does crush, | ||
| But wish thou couldst have don’t without a blush, | ||
| 55 | And that I had been, ere it was too late, | |
| Either more worthy, or more fortunate. | ||
| Ah who can love the thing they cannot prize? | ||
| But thou mayst pity though thou dost despise. | ||
| Yet I should think that pity bought too dear, | ||
| 60 | If it should cost those precious Eyes a tear. | |
| Oh may no minutes trouble, thee possess, | ||
| But to endear the next hours happiness; | ||
| And maist thou when thou art from me remov’d, | ||
| Be better pleas’d, but never worse belov’d: | ||
| 65 | Oh pardon me for pow’ring out my woes | |
| In Rhime now, that I dare not do’t in Prose. | ||
| For I must lose whatever is call’d dear, | ||
| And thy assistance all that loss to bear, | ||
| And have more cause than ere I had before, | ||
| 70 | To fear that I shall never see thee more. |