“All things I then forgot, My cheek on him who for my coming came; All ceased, and I was not, Leaving my cares and shame Among the lilies, and forgetting them.” Best of all, perhaps, Jalāluddin Rūmi: “In a place beyond uttermost place, in a tract without shadow of trace, Soul and body transcending I live, in the soul of my loved one anew.” Sometimes the two aspects, personal and impersonal, are woven together by the poet: and then it is that we come nearest to an understanding of the full experience he is trying to express. A remarkable example of this occurs in Gerard Hopkins, perhaps the greatest mystical poet of the Victorian era: “Thou mastering me God! giver of breath and bread; World’s strand, sway of the sea; Lord of the living and dead; Thou hast bound bones and veins in me, fastened me flesh, And after it almost unmade, what with dread, Thy doing: and dost thou touch me afresh? Over again I feel thy finger and find thee.” “I kiss my hand To the stars, lovely-asunder Starlight, wafting him out of it; and Glow, glory in thunder; Kiss my hand to the dappled-with-damson west: Since, though he is under the world’s splendour and wonder, His mystery must be instressed, stressed; For I greet him the days I meet him, and bless when I understand.”