Katherine Philips-Rosania to Lucasia - The Open Anthology of Literature in English

Ah strike outright, or else forbear,

Be more kind, or more severe;

For in this checquer’d mixture I

Cannot live, and would not die,

And must I neither? tell me why?

When thy Pen thy kindness tells,

My heart transported leaps and swells.

But when my greedy eye does stray

Thy threat’ned absence to survey,

That heart is struck and taints away.

To give me title to rich land,

And the fruition to withstand,

Or solemnly to send the key

Of treasures I must never see,

Would it contempt or bounty be?

This is such refin’d distress,

That thy sad Lovers sigh for less,

Though thou their hopes hast overthrown,

They lose but what they ne’re have known,

But I am plunder’d from my own.

How canst thou thy Rosania prize,

And be so cruel and so wise?

For if such rigid policy

Must thy resolves dispute with me,

Where then is friendship’s victory?

Edited by Alana Collins

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