Jerusalem Sonnets 3
The ‘brass rings’ sonnet features a Baxter
(the more so when the tribulations of his World War One pacifist father are recalled) ludicrously holier-than-thou: but the lash of presenting himself like that can’t be faulted: the whole sequence, in fact, can be viewed as Baxter giving himself a thrashing – ‘Twenty strokes are more than enough’ finding an echo in ‘I had hoped for fifty sonnets’; with the sequence stopping at 39 likely an allusion to Christ’s forty lashes, Baxter darkly showing pride asserting itself even in the attempt to be a scourge to it.
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