About Project

This site is brought to you by Christine Kingston, Lauren Koski, and Ryan Shevin. We decided to develop this site while taking English 417, taught by Professor D. Porter, during the Spring semester of 2010 at the University of Michigan. English 417 focuses on poetry of the eighteenth century: from Milton to Wordsworth.

This site is dedicated to the analysis of the poem "Friendship's Mysterys: To My Dearest Lucasia" by Katherine Philips.

This poem can be read in terms of its context in the life of the poet, her other works, and the works of other authors during the 17th century. Philips chose certain words and phrases that refer to classical, religious, and literary sources, and a close reading of her diction reveals the underlying and intertextual significance of her work. Furthermore, one can analyze the poem's meter, poetic devices, and tone to show how its formal framework contributes to the meaning that modern readers can gain from the poem.

You can find more information about the words that are underlined by clicking on the words.

If you would like to hear the poem being read you may do so by pressing play below:

FRIENDSHIP'S MYSTERYS:
TO MY DEAREST LUCASIA

Come, my Lucasia, since we see
    That miracles men's faith do move,
By wonder and by prodigy
    To the dull, angry world let's prove
    There's a religion in our Love.            5

For though we were design'd t'agree,
    That fate no liberty destroys,
But our election is as free
    As Angells, who with greedy choice
    Are yet determin'd to their Joys.         10

Our hearts are doubled by their 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.

We court our own captivity,
    Then Thrones more great and innocent:
`Twere banishment to be set free,
    Since we weare fetters whose intent
    Not bondage is, but Ornament.           20

Divided Joys are tedious found,
    And griefs united easyer grow:
We are our selves but by rebound,
    And all our titles shuffled so,
    Both Princes, and both subjects too.

Our hearts are mutuall victims lay'd,
    While they (such power in friendship ly's)
Are Altars, Priests, and off'rings made,
And each heart which thus kindly dy's,
Grows deathless by the sacrifise.            30