'AN ODE.
'Arise, my Dove, from midst of Pots arise,
Thy sully'd Habitation leave,
To Dust no longer cleave;
Unworthy they of Heaven that will not view the Skies.
Thy native Beauty reassume,
Prune each neglected Plume
Till, more than Silver white,
Than burnisht Gold more bright,
Thus ever ready stand to take thy Eternal Flight.'
Notwithstanding her modesty, she was not without some confidence that her poetry would survive her, as it has, in fact, already done for two centuries; for thus she wrote her own epitaph:
'When I am Dead, few friends attend my Hearse;
And for a Monument I leave my Verse;'
a monument, perhaps, ære perennium, and which certainly remains longer than the marble cenotaph which was destroyed by the fire in the Savoy.[94]
Epitaphs, indeed, seem to have had a charm for her, as if she had a foreboding of her early death; and the following lines in praise of Mrs. Phillips may serve for a fair description of herself, and as a finish to these extracts from her compositions:
'Orinda (Albion's and her sex's grace)
Owed not her glory to a beauteous face,
It was her radiant soul that shone within;
Which struck a lustre through her outward skin;
That did her lips and cheeks with roses dye,
Advanced her height, and sparkled in her eye.
Nor did her sex at all obstruct her fame,
But higher 'mong the stars it fixed her name;
What she did write, not only all allowed,
But every laurel to her laurel bowed.'
Perhaps too much has been said of the virtues and graces of this chaste and accomplished lady; but it must be remembered that women such as she were rare in the days in which she lived and wrote. Nor must we forget that we are far removed from the sphere of that personal influence, the attractions of which are so powerful, and which probably contributed in no small degree to the fame of this fair scion of the Killigrews.
It was written on her epitaph, according to Ballard:
'Abi, Viator, et plange,
Si eam plangi oporteat
Cui, tam pié morienti,
Vel Cœlites plauserint.'