THE THREE STAGES the scale of imaginative love, the presentation of the beloved object. 227 phantastic re Again he asks his friend to inspire his muse, confessing, as in Sonnet 33, his own inability to do so. As the internal senses are now alone operative he deplores the bodily absence of his beloved, though the memory of the ideal is with him day and night (27), is brighter than the sun, and enlightens the night. "How many a holy and obsequious tear Hath dear religious love stol'n from mine eye, But things removed that hidden lie in thee" (31). As he loves his friend truly, he can count on his love in return, even though his "rude lines" be outstripped by every pen (32). Again, though he has to bear what seems inconstancy, if not disgrace, even then the sorrow of pure love, the tears of true contrition, procure their own pardon (34). To his own faults must be attributed the loss of his love; of himself he can do nothing, but if he can identify himself with his ideal, his will be ideal beauty, wealth, and wit (37). The third stage of imaginative love begins at Sonnet 38 with another prayer for inspiration. He has again to deplore the trials of separation, for he is now deprived even of the portrait drawn by memory and imagination of his love (39). Yet whatever his friend does, whatever injury he may inflict, the poet's heart will be faithful. He worships his beloved's will alone, and is one with it; and as that will is perfect, so will he gain by his very love (41, 42). His beloved is indeed seen best in the dark, when all other objects and earthly aims are excluded (43), and but for the dull substance of his flesh he would mount in thought and desire to the presence of his beloved (44). Were it not for some tender embassies assuring him from time to time of his ideal's reality and life he would sink down and die (45). The change to the ideal love is indicated in Sonnet 46. The object of this love being neither outward beauty nor its pictured resemblance, but an ideal purely interior and intellectual, self-knowledge is necessary. Magister intus docet. The Master teaches within, and we must know ourselves and what speaks there, and distinguish our true motives and aims, if we are to detect His voice. The eye and heart, the flesh and the spirit, the higher and lower impulses are alike active and opposed in mortal war. Each claims possession of the soul. The poet must then look into the inner depths of his heart, "a closet never pierced save by crystal eyes," and there decide by the higher principles of reason, a jury impanelled by nature for that purpose, the true province and function of sense and reason in the representation of his beloved (46). He finds then that sense and reason mutually cooperate to teach us the truth. The outward object SPIRIT AND FLESH 229 through the sense supplies the image whence the heart obtains its ideal; and the phantasm of the ideal again lives in the memory to refresh the soul in the absence of its beloved (47). This he strove to effect. But in spite of all his care to keep his ideal uncorrupted "in sure wards of trust," locked in his inner soul, it escaped and became "a prey of every vulgar thief"; the distractions of outward things (48). His own unworthiness then alone accounts for his beloved's absence (49). His efforts to rise to higher things are impeded by the flesh, "the beast that bears me," " which plods dully on," and only answers with a groan to the bloody spur (50). No carnal strength or power can help him in his fiery race: and he dismisses his body with contempt, and gives "his jade" leave to go, for he would mount with a winged speed, to which the mind itself is slow (51). In his heart's probation only at times can he realise the presence of his beloved. The visits of his beloved are rare and solemn as annual feasts or "costly jewels," "captains in the carcanet," or "state robes seldom worn" (52). The best of earthly things, the most perfect type of man or woman, Adonis or Helen, are in their beauty but counterfeit imitations of the "One Fair." Springtide in its promise, harvest in its abundance, are but types of the beauty and bounty of his ideal, whose unchanging truth or "constant heart" no earthly image bears (53). This invisible truth is the essence of all real perfection, and this shall live on in his verse, though outward forms vanish from sight (54, 55). Sonnet 56 gives expression to another state of soul; the lover pines for sensible consolation. The spirit is chilled by the "perpetual dulness" of his beloved's absence, whose coming would be welcome as summer after winter. But he has no right to be jealous or impatient; he is his beloved's slave, and can think no ill whate'er his master does (57). He must then wait, though waiting be hell (58). He will renew his courage by recalling how antique books and past sages have described his ideal (59). Its image, then, founded on truth, not feeling, will have a new and lasting birth (60). But may not the images thus awakened in his soul be merely his own creation? Have they an objective reality? His beloved cannot care to inspire them (61); yet he must have done so, for the poet sees himself to be so blackened and corrupt, "beated and chopped," by his own evil past, he could never form of himself any worthy conception of truth or beauty (62). His very deformity shall then be a foil and frame for his ideal's praise, as its beauty is seen in the poet's black lines, and shall live for all time; an image recalling the nigra sed formosa of the Canticles. The poet, having now learnt to know himself, is enabled to pierce the mask of other things and to see them as they really are, and he expresses in Sonnet 66 his soul's disgust at the corruption EVILS OF HIS TIMES 231 of his age. "Tired with all these, from these I would be gone, If he dies of his own will, he neglects his duty and abandons the cause of truth (66). But why should his love live on in an age of impiety and falsehood? The world, indeed, admits its outward beauty, but slanders its thoughts and motives; yet, since the world has ever slandered truth, its enmity proves his love immaculate, as in fact it is (68, 69, 70). The poet now turns his thoughts to his own death and its effects on the fame of his beloved. His life has given much scandal. His soul is like a ruined choir or "twilight," showing traces of light and beauty now gone. Let not his friend attempt to defend the poet's good name. "His evil is his own, his better part his love's"; therein was its consecration (73, 74). The thought of union with his love is his only joy on earth, its praise his sole theme (75, 76). Again he asks that his muse be fresh inspired, his brain is as a note-book of blank leaves (77). The next nine sonnets express the poet's jealous indignation at the false praise and "strained touches of rhetoric" and "gross painting" bestowed on his |