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ON THE DEATH OF MRS. KATHERINE PHILIPS, by             Poem Explanation     Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Cruel disease! Ah, could it not suffice
Last Line: To the glad world of poetry and love.
Subject(s): Philips, Katherine ('orinda') (1631-64)


1.

CRuel disease? Ah, could it not suffice,
Thy old and constant spight to exercise
Against the gentlest and the fairest Sex,
Which still thy Depredations most do vex?
Where still thy Malice, most of all,
(Thy Malice or thy Lust) does on the fairest fall?
And in them, most assault the fairest place,
The Throne of Empress Beauty, ev'n the Face?
There was enough of that here to asswage,
(One would have thought) either thy Lust or Rage;
Was't not enough, when thou, prophane Disease,
Didst on this Glorious Temple seize:
Was't not enough, like a wild Zealot, there,
All the rich outward Ornaments to tear,
Deface the innocent pride of beauteous Images?
Was't not enough thus rudely to defile,
But thou must quite destroy the goodly Pile?
And thy unbounded Sacriledge commit
On th' inward Holiest Holy of her Wit?
Cruel disease! There thou mistook'st thy power;
No Mine of Death can that devour,
On her embalmed Name it will abide
An everlasting Pyramide,
As high as Heav'n the top, as Earth, the Basis wide.

2.

All Ages past, record, all Countreys now,
In various kinds such equal Beauties show,
That ev'n Judge Paris would not know
On whom the Golden Apple to bestow,
Though Goddesses to' his sentence did submit,
Women and Lovers would appeal from it:
Nor durst he say, Of all the Female race,
This is the Sovereign Face.
And some (though these be of a kind that's Rare,
That's much, ah, much less frequent then the Fair)
So equally renown'd for Virtue are,
That it the Mother of the Gods might pose,
When the best Woman for her guide she chose.
But if Apollo should design
A Woman Laureat to make,
Without dispute he would Orinda take,
Though Sappho and the famous Nine
Stood by, and did repine.
To be a Princess or a Queen
Is great; but 'tis a Greatness always seen;
The World did never but two Women know,
Who, one by fraud, th' other by wit did rise
To the two tops of Spiritual Dignities,
One Female Pope of old, one Female Poet now.

3.

Of Female Poets, who had Names of old,
Nothing is shown, but only Told,
And all we hear of them perhaps may be
Male-Flatt'ry only, and Male-Poetry.
Few minutes did their Beauties Lightning waste,
The Thunder of their voice did longer last,
But that too soon was past.
The certain proofs of our Orinda's Wit,
In her own lasting Characters are writ,
And they will long my praise of them survive,
Though long perhaps too that may live.
The Trade of Glory manag'd by the Pen
Though great it be, and every where is found,
Does bring in but small profit to us Men;
'Tis but the number of the sharers drown'd.
Orinda on the Female coasts of Fame,
Ingrosses all the Goods of a Poetique Name.
She does no Partner with her see,
Does all the business there alone, which we
Are forc'd to carry on by a whole Company.

4.

But Wit's like a Luxuriant Vine;
Unless to Virtue's Prop it joyn,
Firm and Erect towards Heaven bound;
Tho' it with beauteous Leaves and pleasant Fruit be crown'd,
It lies deform'd, and rotting on the Ground.
Now Shame and Blushes on us all,
Who our own Sex Superior call!
Orinda does our boasting Sex out-do,
Nor in Wit only, but in Virtue too.
She does above our best Examples rise,
In Hate of Vice, and scorn of Vanities.
Never did spirit of the Manly make,
And dipt all o're in Learning's Sacred Lake,
A temper more Invulnerable take.
No violent Passion could an entrance find,
Into the tender Goodness of her Mind;
Through walls of Stone those furious Bullets may
Force their impetuous Way,
When her soft Brest they hit, powerless and dead they lay.

5.

The Fame of Friendship which so long had told
Of three or four illustrious Names of old,
Till hoarse and weary with the tale she grew,
Rejoices now t' have got a new,
A new, and more surprizing story,
Of fair Leucasia's and Orinda's Glory.
As when a prudent Man does once perceive
That in some Foreign Countrey he must live,
The Language and the Manners he does strive
To understand and practise here,
That he may come no Stranger there;
So well Orinda did her self prepare,
In this much different Clime, for her remove,
To the glad World of Poetry and Love.





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