The text comes from Philips’s Poems by the Most Deservedly Admired Mrs. Katherine Philips, the Matchless Orinda (1667). The notes are my own.
1 |
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| Come, my Lucasia, since we see | ||
| That Miracles Mens faith do move, | ||
| By wonder and by prodigy— | something monstrous or supernatural | |
| To the dull angry world let’s prove | ||
| There’s a Religion in our Love. [5] | ||
2 |
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| For though we were design’d t’agree, | ||
| That Fate no liberty destroyes, | ||
| But our Election° is as free | choice | |
| As Angels, who with greedy choice | ||
| Are yet determin’d to their joyes. [10] | ||
3 |
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| Our hearts are doubled by the loss, | ||
| Here Mixture is Addition grown; | ||
| We both diffuse,° and both ingross:° | spread out — amass | |
| And we whose minds are so much one, | ||
| Never, yet ever are alone. [15] | ||
4 |
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| We court° our own Captivity | seek | |
| Than Thrones more great and innocent: | ||
| ’Twere° banishment to be set free, | it would be | |
| Since we wear fetters whose intent | ||
| Not Bondage is, but Ornament. [20] | ||
5 |
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| Divided joyes are tedious found, | ||
| And griefs united easier grow: | ||
| We are our selves but by rebound, | ||
| And all our Titles shuffled so, | ||
| Both Princes, and both Subjects too. [25] | ||
6 |
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| Our Hearts are mutual Victims laid, | ||
| While they (such power in Friendship lies) | ||
| Are Altars, Priests, and Off’rings made: | ||
| And each Heart which thus kindly dies, | ||
| Grows deathless by the Sacrifice. [30] |