Epitaph on her Son H. P.

Katherine PhilipsKatherine Philips

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What on Earth deserves our trust ?
Youth and Beauty both are dust.
Long we gathering are with pain,
What one moment calls again.
Seven years childless, marriage past,
A Son, a son is born at last :
So exactly lim'd and fair.
Full of good Spirits, Meen, and Air,
As a long life promised,
Yet, in less than six weeks dead.
Too promising, too great a mind
In so small room to be confin'd :
Therefore, as fit in Heav'n to dwell,
He quickly broke the Prison shell.
So the subtle Alchimist,
Can't with Hermes Seal resist
The powerful spirit's subtler flight,
But t'will bid him long good night.
And so the Sun if it arise
Half so glorious as his Eyes,
Like this Infant, takes a shrowd,
Buried in a morning Cloud.
Katherine Philips
About the poet

Katherine Philips

1631 - 1647/EnglishKatherine Fowler was born on New Year's day, 1631 in London, England. In 1647, at the age of sixteen, Katherine was married to fifty-four-year old James Philips. Soon after, she formed the Society of Friendship where she and a small group o…

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