The text comes from Philips’s Poems by the Most Deservedly Admired Mrs. Katherine Philips, the Matchless Orinda (1667).
| The things that make a Virgin please, | ||
| She that seeks, will find them these; | ||
| A Beauty, not to Art° in debt, | skill | |
| Rather agreeable than great; | ||
| 5 | An Eye, wherein at once do meet, | |
| The beams of kindness, and of wit; | ||
| An undissembled° Innocence, | authentic | |
| Apt not to give, nor take offence: | ||
| A Conversation, at once, free | ||
| 10 | From Passion, and from Subtlety; | |
| A Face that’s modest, yet serene, | ||
| A sober, and yet lively Meen;° | appearance | |
| The vertue which does her adorn, | ||
| By honour guarded, not by scorn; | ||
| 15 | With such wise lowliness indu’d, | |
| As never can be mean, or rude; | ||
| That prudent negligence enrich, | ||
| And Time’s her silence and her speech; | ||
| Whose equal° mind, does alwaies move, | steady | |
| 20 | Neither a foe, nor slave to Love; | |
| And whose Religion’s strong and plain, | ||
| Not superstitious, nor prophane. |