The text comes from Philips’s Poems by the Most Deservedly Admired Mrs. Katherine Philips, the Matchless Orinda (1667).
1 |
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| Content, the false World’s best disguise, | ||
| The search and faction of the Wise, | ||
| Is so abstruse and hid in night, | ||
| That, like that Fairy Red-cross Knight, | ||
| 5 | Who treacherous Falshood for clear Truth had got, | |
| Men think they have it when they have it not. | ||
2 |
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| For Courts Content would gladly own, | ||
| But she ne’er dwelt about a Throne: | ||
| And to be flatter’d, rich, and great, | ||
| 10 | Are things which do Mens senses cheat. | |
| But grave Experience long since this did see, | ||
| Ambition and Content would ne’er agree. | ||
3 |
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| Some vainer would Content expect | ||
| From what their bright Out-sides reflect: | ||
| 15 | But sure Content is more Divine | |
| Than to be digg’d from Rock or Mine: | ||
| And they that know her beauties will confess, | ||
| She needs no lustre from a glittering dress. | ||
4 |
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| In Mirth some place her, but she scorns | ||
| 20 | Th’ assistance of such crackling thorns, | |
| Nor owes her self to such thin sport, | ||
| That is so sharp and yet so short: | ||
| And Painters tell us they the same strokes place, | ||
| To make a laughing and a weeping face. | ||
5 |
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| 25 | Others there are that place Content | |
| In Liberty from Government: | ||
| But whomsoe’re Passions° deprave, | emotions | |
| Though free from shackles, he’s a slave. | ||
| Content and Bondage differ only then, | ||
| 30 | When we are chain’d by Vices, not by Men. | |
6 |
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| Some think the Camp Content does know, | ||
| And that she sits o’th’Victor’s brow: | ||
| But in his Laurel there is seen | ||
| Often a Cypress-bow between. | ||
| 35 | Nor will Content her self in that place give, | |
| Where Noise and Tumult and Destruction live. | ||
7 |
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| But yet the most Discreet believe, | ||
| The Schools this Jewel do receive, | ||
| And thus far’s true without dispute, | ||
| 40 | Knowledge is still the sweetest fruit. | |
| But whilst men seek for Truth they lose their Peace; | ||
| And who heaps Knowledge, Sorrow doth increase. | ||
8 |
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| But now some sullen Hermite smiles, | ||
| And thinks he all the World beguiles, | ||
| 45 | And that his Cell and Dish contain | |
| What all mankind wish for in vain. | ||
| But yet his pleasure’s follow’d with a Groan, | ||
| For man was never born to be alone. | ||
9 |
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| Content her self best comprehends | ||
| 50 | Betwixt two souls, and they two friends, | |
| Whose either joyes in both are fix’d, | ||
| And multiply’d by being mix’d: | ||
| Whose minds and interests are so the same; | ||
| Their Griefs, when once imparted, lose that name. | ||
10 |
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| 55 | These far remov’d from all bold noise, | |
| And (what is worse) all hollow joyes, | ||
| Who never had a mean design,° |
mean design = low intention | |
| Whose flame is serious and divine, | ||
| And calm, and even, must contented be, | ||
| 50 | For they’ve both Union and Society. | |
11 |
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| Then, my Lucasia, we who have | ||
| Whatever Love can give or crave; | ||
| Who can with pitying scorn survey | ||
| The Trifles which the most betray; | ||
| 65 | With innocence and perfect friendship fir’d | |
| By Vertue joyn’d, and by our Choice retir’d. | ||
12 |
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| Whose Mirrours are the crystal Brooks, | ||
| Or else each others Hearts and Looks; | ||
| Who cannot wish for other things | ||
| 70 | Then Privacy and Friendship brings: | |
| Whose thoughts and persons chang’d and mixt are one, | ||
| Enjoy Content, or else the World hath none. |