Next, with the Reformation and the revival of literature together, come more of art and more of philosophy, to the detriment of the lyrical expression.
People cannot think and sing: they can only feel and sing.

But the philosophy goes farther in this direction, even to the putting in abeyance of that from which song takes its rise,--namely, feeling itself.
As to the former, amongst the verse of the period I have given, there is hardly anything to be called song but Sir Philip Sidney's Psalms, and for them we are more indebted to King David than to Sir Philip.

As to the latter, even in the case of that most mournful poem of the Countess of Pembroke, it is, to quite an unhealthy degree, occupied with the attempt to work upon her own feelings by the contemplation of them, instead of with the utterance of those aroused by the contemplation of truth.

In her case the metaphysics have begun to prey upon and consume the emotions.
Besides, that age was essentially a dramatic age, as even its command of language, especially as shown in the pranks it plays with it, would almost indicate; and the dramatic impulse is less favourable, though not at all opposed, to lyrical utterance.

In the cases of Sir Fulk Grevill and Sir John Davies, the feeling is assuredly profound; but in form and expression the philosophy has quite the upper hand.
We must not therefore suppose, however, that the cause of religious poetry has been a losing one.