the Seraphic Doctor, title given to the Italian medieval theologian Bonaventure

Ye Hoſts that to his Courts belong, / Cherubic Quires, Seraphic Flames, / Awake the everlaſting Song.

A thousand times he was like to have denyed all, but durst not defame the most sacred Idol of his Soul: Sometimes he thought his Uncle would be generous, and think it fit to give him Silvia; but that Thought was too Seraphick to remain a Moment in his Heart.

Their passion seems to have been of the seraphic kind. She devoted herself to religion, and persuaded him to do the same.

Too white, for the flower of life is red;
Her flesh was the soft, seraphic screen
Of a soul that is meant (her parents said)
To just see earth, and hardly be seen,
And blossom in Heaven instead.

So instead of Tesfaye’s seraphic warble, Hanley offers earthier, gruffer tones: you get the impression, considering the casual sexism and more conventional machismo on display here, that the rarefied, stylised and feminised would be unacceptable in his world.

Seraphic

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