What have I said? That I'll do this
That am so false and weak,
And have so often done amiss,
And did my covenants break?

I mean, Lord--all this shall be done
If thou my heart wilt raise;
And as the work must be thine own,
So also shall the praise.

The allegory is so good that one is absolutely sorry when it breaks down,
and the poem says in plain words that which is the subject of the
figures, bringing truths unmasked into the midst of the maskers who
represent truths--thus interrupting the pleasure of the artistic sense in
the transparent illusion.

The command of metrical form in Baxter is somewhat remarkable. He has not
much melody, but he keeps good time in a variety of measures.




CHAPTER XVII.

CRASHAW AND MARVELL.


I come now to one of the loveliest of our angel-birds, Richard Crashaw.
Indeed he was like a bird in more senses than one; for he belongs to that