"Friendship's Mystery"
By Katherine Philips

Transcription, correction, editorial commentary, and markup by Staff and Research Assistants at The University of Virginia, John O'Brien, Sara Brunstetter, Rachel Retica
    

Sources

London : Printed by J.M. for H. Herringman, 1667This text is based on transcriptions created by the Early English Books Online Texts Creation Partnership, a library-based project directed by the University of Michigan and Oxford University. Their digital text was produced from the 1667 edition, published by Henry Herringman in London in 1667, three years after Philips's death, but with the collaboration of her late husband. We have also consulted The Collected Works of Katherine Philips, edited by Patrick Thomas (Essex: Stump Cross Books, 1990), which takes Philips's manuscript versions of her poems as its copytext. Annotations have been provided by faculty and students at the University of Virginia. For a full description of this object, see its ESTC entry.

Editorial Statements

Research informing these annotations draws on publicly-accessible resources, with links provided where possible. Annotations have also included common knowledge, defined as information that can be found in multiple reliable sources. If you notice an error in these annotations, please contact lic.open.anthology@gmail.com.

Original spelling and capitalization is retained, though the long s has been silently modernized and ligatured forms are not encoded.

Hyphenation has not been retained, except where necessary for the sense of the word.

Page breaks have been retained. Catchwords, signatures, and running headers have not. Where pages break in the middle of a word, the complete word has been indicated prior to the page beginning.

Materials have been transcribed from and checked against first editions, where possible. See the Sources section.

Citation

Philips, Katherine. "Death". Poems by the most deservedly admired Mrs. Katherine Philips, the matchless Orinda; to which is added Monsieur Corneille's Pompey & Horace, tragedies; with several other translations out of French, Printed by J.M. for H. Herringman, 1667 . Literature in Context: An Open Anthology. http://anthologydev.lib.virginia.edu/work/Philips/philips-friendship. Accessed: 2025-11-06T15:34:36.061Z

Linked Data

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Friendship's Mystery. 1Come, my Lucasia, since we see 2That Miracles Men's faith do move, 3By wonder and by prodigy 4To the dull angry world let’s prove 5There’s a Religion in our Love. 6For though we were design’d t’ agree, 7That Fate no liberty destroyes, 8But our Election is as free 9As Angels, who with greedy choice 10Are yet determin’d to their joyes. 11Our hearts are doubled by the loss, 12Here Mixture is Addition grown; 13We both diffuse, and both ingross: 14And we whose minds are so much one, 15Never, yet ever are alone. 16We court our own Captivity 17Than Thrones more great and innocent: 18’Twere banishment to be set free, 19For they our Bodies will survive; 20Not Bondage is, but Ornament. 21Divided joys are tedious found, 22And griefs united easier grow: 23We are our selves but by rebound, 24And all our Titles shuffled so, 25Both Princes, and both Subjects too. 26Our Hearts are mutual Victims laid, 27While they (such power in Friendship lies) 28Are Altars, Priests, and Off’rings made: 29And each Heart which thus kindly dies, 30Grows deathless by the Sacrifice.

Footnotes