Whereas the original prophetic significance of these phrases is now meaningless for us, their suggestive quality—their appeal to the mystic consciousness—retains its full force. They are artistic creations; and have the enormous evocative power proper to all great art. Later mystics use such passages again and again, reading their own experiences into these traditional forms. The classic example of this close alliance between poetic readings of life and practical mysticism is of course the mystical interpretation of the _Song of Songs_, which appears in Christian mysticism at least as early as the fourth century. But there are many other instances. Thus St. Macarius finds in Ezekiel’s vision of the Cherubim a profoundly suggestive image of the state of the deified soul, “all eyes and all wings,” driven upon its course by the Heavenly Charioteer of the Spirit. Thus in _The Mirror of Simple Souls_, another of Ezekiel’s visions—that of the “great eagle, with great wings, long wings, full of feathers, which took the highest branch of the cedar”—becomes the vivid symbol of the contemplative mind, “the eagle that flies high, so right high and yet more high than does any other bird, for she is feathered with fine love, and beholds above other the beauty of the sun.” When we pass to the mystical poets, we find that nearly all their best effects are due to their extraordinary genius for this kind of indirect, suggestive imagery. This is the method by which they proceed when they wish to communicate their vision of reality. Their works are full of magical phrases which baffle analysis, yet, as one of them has said: “Lighten the wave-washed caverns of the mind With a pale, starry grace.” Many of these phrases are of course familiar to every one. Vaughan’s “I saw Eternity the other night Like a great ring of pure and endless light.” Blake’s “To see a world in a grain of sand And a heaven in a wild flower, Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, And eternity in an hour.” Whitman’s “Light rare, untellable, lighting the very light.” Thompson’s “Ever and anon a trumpet sounds From the hid battlements of Eternity.” These are artistic, sidelong representations of the mystic’s direct apprehension of the Infinite on, so to speak, its cosmic and impersonal side. Others reflect the personal and intimate contact with the Divine Life which forms the opposite side of his complete experience. Thus Francis Thompson: “With his aureole The tresses of my soul Are blent In wished content.” So, too, St. John of the Cross: