“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:
“All things I then forgot,
My cheek on him who for my coming came;