The author/editor interlarded his collection of 86 medieval lyrics with his interesting arguments. Middle English verse has a high degree of stylistic coherence which persisted for 300 years [3] which the author draws from his reading of some 1300 anonymous lyrics and songs. Oliver writes the historical and comparative "grammar of the poetic sublanguage" [5,7] showing the structural unity and order the poems share, primarily arising from their public use. Oliver's analysis looks to the anonymous author's original (and medieval) intentions, interpreting the expression in the poem as "the act of comprehending otherness", where "the poem is an asymptote to the curve of personality" [7 quoting Walter Ong]. Fortunately, the original meanings are "as a matter of fact, quite explicit and rather simple". And there are only three "main intentions" of Middle English lyric -- to celebrate, to persuade, and to define [8], and all three are practical, public, and to us, anonymous [11]. This is the opposite of l'art pour l'art which perhaps takes up so much oxygen today. I have to mention a favorite, a verse that invokes an epigrammatic Saxon gnome or riddle: Wrecche mon, wy artou proud,/ Wat art of herth I-maked?/ hydyr ne browtestou no schroud,/ but pore Wou come & naked. / Wen Wi soule is faren out,/ Wi body with erthe y-raked,/ Wat body Wat was so ronk and loud, / Of alle-men is i-hated. [76]. But the high style, appearing in romances and religious inctus, also appeals to my own sadness which yearns to be lofty (before doubling over with sprawling gales of laughter into my fetus form of defeat). Example: "Where are the horses gone to?/ Where are the men gone?/ Where are the givers of treasures gone? The places of feasting? The joys of the Hall?/ Alas, the bright cup! Alas the armed warrior! How that time has passed,/ Gone under the night-helm, as though it had never been!" [80]. {Compare, Ic Motoma Xochuic in Toyalla?}