"Rosania to Lucasia on her Letters"
By
Katherine Philips
- Transcription, correction, editorial commentary, and markup by Students and Staff at The University of Virginia, John O'Brien, Sara Brunstetter
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Rosania to Lucasia on her Lettersn001n001"Rosania" refers to Mary Aubrey, a friend of Philips's from childhood. "Lucasia" refers to Ann Owen, who was Philips's closest friend and the person to whom many of her poems are addressed. This poem, unusually, sees Philips takes the voice of someone other than herself, imagining two members of her coterie writing to each other.
1Ah strike outright, or else forbear,
2Be more kind, or more severe;
3For in this checquer'dn003n003Checkered or full of alteration and varying character. Source: Oxford English Dictionary mixture I
4Cannot live, and would not die,
5And must I neither? tell me why?
6When thy Pen thy kindness tells,
7My heart transported leaps and swells.
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8But when my greedy eye does stray
9Thy threat'ned absence to survey,
10That heart is struck and faints away.
11To give me title to rich land,
12And the fruition to withstand,
13Or solemnly to send the key
14Of treasures I must never see,
15Would it contempt or bounty be?
16This is such refin'd distress,
17That thy sad Lovers sigh for less,
18Though thou their hopes hast overthrown,
19They lose but what they ne're have known,
20But I am plunder'd from my own.
21How canst thou thy Rosania prize,
22And be so cruel and so wise?
23For if such rigid policy
24Must thy resolves dispute with me,
25Where then is friendship's victory?
26Kindness is of so brave a make
27'Twil rather death thenn004n004thanbondage take,
28So that if thine no power can have,
29Give it and me one common grave,
30But quickly either kill or save.