This profound and very difficult theme is treated by Patmore in a manner
at once austere and passionate in the exquisite little preludes to the
_Angel in the House_, and more especially in the odes, which stand alone
in nineteenth-century poetry for poignancy of feeling and depth of
spiritual passion. They are the highest expression of "erotic
mysticism"[17] in English; a marvellous combination of flaming ardour
and sensuousness of description with purity and austerity of tone. This
latter effect is gained largely by the bare and irregular metre, which
has a curiously compelling beauty of rhythm and dignity of cadence.

The book into which Patmore put the fullness of his convictions, the
_Sponsa Dei_, which he burnt because he feared it revealed too much to a
world not ready for it, was says Mr Gosse, who had read it in
manuscript, "a transcendental treatise on Divine desire seen through the
veil of human desire." We can guess fairly accurately its tenor and
spirit if we read the prose essay _Dieu et ma Dame_ and the wonderful
ode _Sponsa Dei_, which, happily, the poet did not destroy.

It may be noted that the other human affections and relationships also
have for Patmore a deep symbolic value, and two of his finest odes are
written, the one in symbolism of mother love, the other in that of
father and son.[18]

We learn by human love, so be points out, to realise the possibility of
contact between the finite and Infinite, for divinity can only be
revealed by voluntarily submitting to limitations. It is "the mystic
craving of the great to become the love-captive of the small, while the
small has a corresponding thirst for the enthralment of the great."[19]