crowned my felicity

Yesterday, Mallory posted something depressing but lovely from Tennyson's In Memoriam A.H.H. I have strong feelings about platonic friendship (this should come as a surprise to exactly no one, I work on the seventeenth century), and I require an antidote, because Tennyson's love and grief for Hallam make me cry, and today is not a day for crying.

I did not live until this time
Crowned my felicity,
When I could say without a crime,
I am not thine, but thee.

This carcass breathed, and walked, and slept,
So that the world believed
There was a soul the motions kept;
But they were all deceived.

For as a watch by art is wound
To motion, such was mine:
But never had Orinda found
A soul till she found thine;

Which now inspires, cures and supplies,
And guides my darkened breast:
For thou art all that I can prize,
My joy, my life, my rest.

No bridegroom’s nor crown-conqueror’s mirth
To mine compared can be:
They have but pieces of the earth,
I’ve all the world in thee.

Then let our flames still light and shine,
And no false fear control,
As innocent as our design,
Immortal as our soul.

~Katherine Philips, aka the Matchless Orinda (1631/2-1664), 'To My Excellent Lucasia, on Our Friendship'. First printed (I think, I couldn't double check) in Poems by the most deservedly admired Mrs. Katherine Philips the matchless Orinda. To which is added Monsieur Corneille’s Pompey & Horace, tragedies. With several other translations out of French, (London: printed by J. Macock for H. Herringman, at the sign of the Blew Anchor in the lower walk of the New Exchange, 1667).