O thou who art not as I am

The lyric is inserted as part of the story “St. Agnes of Intercession”. In that context, the poem is clearly fucntioning as a parodic text. To the degree that DGR's story is itself a parodic treatment of some of his own most cherished aesthetic preoccupations—as it most definitely is—this poem is a piece of comical self-reflection quite in the spirit of a later work like “Parted Love!”