It is not difficult to understand why the two conceptions of Mary (more especially in the souls of the monks) were so often inextricably intermingled; circumstances frequently demanded a complete fusion.  As late as in the nineteenth century, a romantic poet, Zacharias Werner, said: 

     Oh, sov’reign lady, mistress of my fortune,
     And thou, the Queen and ruler of the heavens,
     (I cannot keep you sundered and apart.)

I shall endeavour to keep them sundered and apart as far as possible, for I am only concerned with man’s metaphysical emotion of love and its creation, womanhood deified, and not with Catholic dogmas.  With this object in view, I will return to the poets previously quoted, and continue the unfolding of the process of deification.  As a rule the metaphysical lovers were content with immortalising their feelings in, very often, excellent verses, raising the beloved mistress above the earth and worshipping her as the culmination of beauty and perfection.  The quite unusual craving to give her a place in the eternal structure of the cosmos animated only one poet, Dante, who, combining the Catholic striving for unity with spontaneous, magnificent woman-worship, created a masterpiece which is unique in literature.

Typical among the later Provencals was Guirot Riquier.  Several of his poems which have been preserved to us make it impossible to say whether they are addressed to an earthly woman or to the Queen of Heaven; these poems mark, in a sense, a period of transition.  They are exceedingly vague, and it is not worth while to translate them; but as they are dated it is interesting to watch the poet’s love growing more and more spiritual and religious, to see him gradually deserting his earthly love for the Lady of Heaven.  In one poem he prays to his lady “who is worshipped by all true lovers,” to teach him the right way of loving.  In the next he repents his all too earthly passion: 

     I often thought I was of true love singing,
     And knew not that to love my heart was blind,
     And folly was as love itself enshrined. 
     But now such love in all my soul is ringing,
     That though to love and praise her I aspire
     As is her meed—­in vain is my desire. 
     Henceforth her love alone shall be my guide
     And my new hope in that great love abide.

     For her great love the uttermost shall proffer
     Of honour, wealth, and earthly joy and bliss,
     With her to love, my heart will never miss
     Those who no gifts like her gifts have to offer. 
     She the fulfilment is of my desire,
     Therefore I vow myself her true esquire;
     She’ll love me in return—­my splendid meed—­
     If I but love aright in word and deed.

and one of his rather more religious songs ends as follows: