Rhyme was never more brilliantly abused than in this _tour de force_, in which the clang of the machinery comes near to killing the music.

More seriously, in the finely turned stanzas _At the Mermaid_, and _House_, he avails himself of the habitual reticence of Shakespeare to defend by implication his own reserve, not without a passing sarcasm at the cost of the poet who took Europe by storm with the pageant of his broken heart.

_House_ is for the most part rank prose, but it sums up incisively in the well-known retort: "'_With this same key Shakespeare unlocked his heart_,' once more! Did Shakespeare?
If so, the less Shakespeare he!" This "house" image is singularly frequent in this volume.

The poet seems haunted by the idea of the barrier walls, which keep off the public gaze, but admit the privileged spirit.

In _Fears and Scruples_ it symbolises the reticence of God.