The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse

Rating:
Summary: An important, memorable book
Review: I am thrilled to know that this book is back in print. I read it back in the early 70s. It was a library copy and already out of print, so I hand-copied all the poems I could. I've missed the rest ever since. Getting this new copy is like meeting an old friend--no, more than a friend, a mentor on my spiritual path. Don't miss this: it's the real thing.

Rating:
Summary: If you want to own just one book,this is the one!
Review: The fiery passion of mystical experience in all of its varieties is in every poem!

Rating:
Summary: If you want to own just one book,this is the one!
Review: The fiery passion of mystical experience in all of its varieties is in every poem!

Rating:
Summary: Mist-ical Verse
Review: This book contains a few gems I had not read before, so I would like to give it a higher rating. However, the literary quality of most of the last half of the book is extremely low, full of tired rhymes and cliches. Much of the "mysticism" is of the misty variety, the sort the great mystics are constantly warning against. I would like to have seen the seventeenth century better represented (only two poems by Francis Quarles!). Also, fewer poems than I expected demonstrated a definite religious commitment, Christian or otherwise. I was, however, glad for the token representations of Jewish, Islamic, Hindu & Buddhist perspectives, little as they were.