FINAL OBLATION 235 alone, unchanging himself, having fixed his heart on what is unchangeable and eternal (124). One act alone can adequately express his love and worship -the sacrifice of all he is and all he has to its true object; a poor offering, indeed, but voluntary and complete. "No, let me be obsequious in thy heart, And take thou my oblation, poor but free, his As the Paternoster was chosen to express former petition (108), so here the language of a yet more solemn office is used. The outward sign of the Eucharistic oblation is but wastel bread, the inward effect the union of the creature with his God of the human love with the one ideal and perfect exemplar. Then, as if remembering that he had employed the words of a proscribed ritual, he concludes "Hence, thou suborned informer! a true soul, When most impeached, stands least in thy control." Sonnet 126 is merely an epilogue or appendix to the series we have considered. That series is complete in its unity, and exhibits the ascent of the soul by purifying love through the phases recognised both by mystical writers and sonneteers contemporary with Shakespeare. The leading idea is often hard to trace, hidden as it is under a wealth of imagery; but, when discovered, is ever found advancing in its appointed grades, with precision and certainty, to its only legitimate conclusion. In his second series of sonnets, the poet traces the descent of the soul in the "love of despair." Its object, instead of an angelic youth, aliquid jam non carnis in carne, is a gipsy-like woman, with black eyes and hair and complexion "coloured ill." He sees in her "beauty profaned," and, like Dante and the siren, is at first disgusted with the sight. But like Dante again, he lingers in the presence of the temptress. Sense attractions and his lower impulses stifle reason and conscience. No angel appears to save him as with his Tuscan prototype, and he surrenders himself to the painted charms. The delusion and disorder of the soul, a prey to temptation, the madness consequent on "the swallowed bait," and the repugnance and loathing resulting therefrom, when the heat of passion is passed, the close connection of sin with sin, the parentage of crime from crime-all these are then described in language alike psychologically and theologically accurate. No less profoundly true are the concluding lines, expressing the extraordinary power of temptation, even where experience has taught the misery of a fall. "All this the world well knows; yet none knows well To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell" (129). These last lines explain how it is, that though he knows the real deformity of the temptress, he is THE TYRANNY OF SIN 237 still held captive by her. He groans under her tyranny, as St. Augustine under the iron chain that held him bound (Conf. viii. 10), but strives in vain for freedom. Absent from the accursed object, he has a lucid interval, and realises the extent of his delusion; but accounts for it by supposing that she is really fair without and only foul within (131), or that her pretended sympathy has won his heart (132). Nor has he only to deplore a moral fall; the image of purity, the type of his true love, is now effaced from his soul. This concludes the imaginative stage of sensual love, the inability to recall or picture the remembrance of what is good. The ideal stage opens with the soul wholly materialised; and thus enslaved, the poet abandons himself and his friend to his mistress's yoke, under the symbol of the three Wills. Himself, W. S., his friend, W. H., are handed over to the Will and dominion of evil. The very fact of his previous high ideal and former purity makes him a valuable conquest in her eyes (136); while on his side he is so completely blinded by her "over-partial looks," that he regards as exclusively his own what is in truth "the wide world's common place" (137). Having thus attempted to justify false love by idealising it, he still further seeks excuses for his passion by painting its vices as virtues. In this his mistress joins, and thus the partners in evil flatter each other with falsehoods, and increase their mutual blindness. She calls his old age youth, he, her falsehood truth. "Therefore I lie with her, and she with me, And in our faults by lies we flattered be” (138). sensual dominion to She had better feign Nothing breaks the chain of his captivity. She is false and cruel to him to his face, and he knows it; yet she is able by her keep him in slavery (139). a little kindness, and make at least some profession of the love which she is incapable of feeling, or he may grow reckless, and speak out (140). He does So. Her face is hideous, her voice discordant, her touch freezes, her presence repels. She is no longer attractive but loathsome; yet having dethroned reason, and yielded to passion, he must be still "her venal wretch." His iniquity is indeed his torment; perhaps his bitter experience may be of future profit. "Only my plague thus far I count my gain That she that makes me sin awards me pain" (141). In their mutual and utter degradation they cannot reproach each other. Virtue and vice have changed places; love and hate have lost their true meaning. All things are perverted and confused. Their socalled honour is rooted in shame and treachery. Yet again he accuses her; false, pitiless, and heartless to him, if she ever want pity, may she be paid in her own coin, and seek it in vain. SPARKS OF GOODNESS "If thou dost seek to have what thou dost hide, 239 In her insatiable selfishness, fickleness, and vanity, she forgets the slave at her side, to pursue any one she thinks indifferent to her charms; just as a housewife drops her crying child to capture a stray chick. The conquest made, she returns to her helpless victim, plays the mother's part again, kisses him and is kind (143). All this he sees, for the good angel still wrestles with the devil in his soul, yet its accents are scarcely distinguishable to his seared conscience. He will not know what he truly is, till he finds himself a reprobate (144). She alternately tortures and coaxes, drives him away and calls him back; and he comes, for, fallen as he is, he lives only in her (145). In Sonnet 146 he apostrophises his soul, much after the language of St. Paul: "Infelix homo, quis me liberabit a corpore mortis." All the bodily indulgence, luxury, and sensual delight, with which his mistress pampers him, is, after all, only feeding on death (146), for "in a sort lechery eats itself” (“Troilus and Cressida," v. 4), yet his passion is as fever, longing for that which nurses the disease. He is past cure and past care, he is mad, frantic mad, and he knows it. "For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright Still he remains wilfully and voluntarily blind to his own foulness and to hers (148), and yields a |