It is certain that he wrote this, as he wrote his other
Sonnets, in imitation of Shakespeare, not merely imitating the form
but approaching the subject in the spirit in which he believed
Shakespeare to have approached his subject. It follows therefore
that he did not write this sonnet as an academic exercise, had he
done so he would not have been imitating Shakespeare. If we assume
that he was presenting his story as he presented the dialogue in "A
Psalm of Montreal" in a form "perhaps true, perhaps imaginary,
perhaps a little of the one and a little of the other," it would be
quite in the manner of the author of The Fair Haven to burlesque the
methods of the critics by ignoring the sincerity of the emotions and
fixing on the little bit of inaccuracy in the facts. We may suppose
him to be saying out loud to the critics: "You think Shakespeare's
Sonnets were composed as academic exercises, do you? Very well then,
now what do you make of this?" And adding aside to himself: "That
will be good enough for them; they'll swallow anything."
xii. A Prayer
Extract from Butler's Note-Books under the date of February or March
1883:
"'Cleanse thou me from my secret sins.' I heard a man moralising on
this and shocked him by saying demurely that I did not mind these so
much, if I could get rid of those that were obvious to other people."
He wrote the sonnet in 1900 or 1901.
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