Lost is his epic, nay, pindaric art,
But still I love the language of his heart.

Mrs. Philips’s poetry has not harmony of versification, or amorous tenderness to recommend it, but it has a force of thinking, which few poets of the other sex can exceed, and if it is without graces, it has yet a great deal of strength.  As she has been celebrated for her friendship, we shall present the reader with an Ode upon that subject, addressed to her dearest Lucasia.

I.

Come my Lucasia, since we see
That miracles men’s faith do move
By wonder, and by prodigy;
To the dull angry world lets prove
There’s a religion in our love.

II.

For tho’ we were designed t’agree,
That fate no liberty destroys,
But our election is as free
As angels, who with greedy choice
Are yet determined to their joys.

III.

Our hearts are doubled by the loss,
Here mixture is addition grown;
We both diffuse, and both engross: 
And we whose minds are so much one,
Never, yet ever are alone.

IV.

We court our own captivity,
Than thrones more great and innocent: 
’Twere banishment to be set free,
Since we wear fetters whose intent
Not bondage is, but ornament.

V.

Divided joys are tedious found,
And griefs united easier grow: 
We are ourselves, but by rebound,
And all our titles shuffled so,
Both princes, and both subjects too.

VI.

Our hearts are mutual victims laid,
While they (such power in friendship lies)
Are altars, priests, and offerings made: 
And each heart which thus kindly dies,
Grows deathless by the sacrifice.

On the death of Mrs. Philips.

I.

Cruel disease! ah, could it not suffice,
Thy old and constant spite 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 assuage,
(One would have thought) either thy lust or rage;
Was’t not enough, when thou, profane 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 sacrilege 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.

II.