speaking of Mary, thou would'st have
spoken the truth. But now I must bewail thy errors."

A complete blending of sensuality and Mary-worship was achieved in an
Italian poem of the fifteenth century. The author of this poem addressed
Mary as "queen of my heart," and "blossom of loveliness," and goes on to
say: "I can tell by your gestures and your face that you respond to my
love; when you look at me, you smile, and when you sigh, your eyes are
full of tenderness.... Sometimes, in the evening, I stand below your
balcony; you hear my sighs, but you make no reply.... When I gaze at
your beauty, I burn with love, but when I think of your cruelty, I call
on death to release me." In this poem we have a caricature of
metaphysical eroticism.

In the sonnets of Petrarch, metaphysical love has become stereotyped.
Adoration has become a phrase (as Cupid has become a phrase with the
earlier poets). It is obvious that he loves Laura because the play on
the word Laura and _lauro_ (laurel) caught his fancy. I can find no
spontaneous feeling in the famous Canzoniero; all I see is erudition and
perfection of form. But among the few sincere specimens there is one
beautiful poem addressed to Mary: "_Vergine bella che di sol vestida!_"
which is not without erotic warmth. But the singer and humanist
expresses himself judiciously:

Oh, Thou, the Queen of Heaven and our goddess
(If it be fitting such a phrase to use).

So far we have observed the current which, emanating from the beloved
woman, lifted her into supernal regions and endowed her with
perfection--the mistress is stripped of everything earthly, the longing
which can never be stilled on earth, soars heavenward. Now we will
examine the opposite current; the current which emanates from the
Madonna of dogma, the Lady of Heaven who is the same to all men, in her
last stage, that is to say when she is finally enthroned by the side of
God. Many a monk--earthly love being denied to him--was driven to a
purely spiritual, metaphysical love by the fact of his being permitted
to love the Lady of Heaven without hesitation or remorse. She was the
fairest of women, and he was at liberty to interpret the meaning of "the
fairest" in any sense he chose.

The climax of the emotional worship of the ecclesiastical Mary was
reached by St. Bernard, the _Doctor Marianus_ mentioned on a previous
occasion. He was the author of sermons and homilies in honour of Mary,
and has been instrumen