, and of
the joy of mystic union with Him. A maid of Christ, says the poet, has
begged him to "wurche a luve ron" (make a love-song), which he does; and
points out to her that this world's love is false and fickle, and that
worldly lovers shall pass away like a wind's blast.

Hwer is Paris and Heleyne
That weren so bright and feyre on bleo:
Amadas, Tristram and Dideyne
Yseude and alle theo:
Ector with his scharpe meyne
And Cesar riche of wor[l]des feo?
Heo beoth iglyden ut of the reyne,
So the schef is of the cleo.

As the corn from the hill-side, Paris and Helen and all bright lovers
have passed away, and it is as if they had never lived.

But, maid, if you want a lover, he continues, I can direct you to one,
the fairest, truest, and richest in the whole world. Henry, King of
England, is his vassal, and to thee, maid, this lover sends a message
and desires to know thee.

Mayde to the he send his sonde
And wilneth for to beo the cuth.

And so the poem goes on to express in simple terms of earthly love, the
passionate delight and joy and peace of the soul in attaining to union
with her God, in whose dwelling is perfect bliss and safety.

This poem is a delicate example of what is called "erotic mysticism,"
that is the love and attraction of the soul for God, and of God for the
soul, expressed in the terms of the love between man and woman. It is a
type of expression characteristic of the great mystics of the Catholic
Church, especially in the Middle Ages,[53] and we find a good deal of it
in our earliest mystical writers. One of the most charming examples of
it other than this lyric, is the chapter "Of Love" in the _Ancren
Riwle_, or Rule for Anchoresses, written probably early in the
thirteenth century. An account is there given, quite unsurpassed for
delicate beauty, of the wooing of the soul by God.[54] On the whole,
however, this type of mysticism is rare in England, and we scarcely meet
it again after these early writers until we come to the poems of
Crashaw. The finest expression of it is the Song of Solomon, and it is
easy to see that such a form of symbolism is specially liable to
degradation, and is open to grave dangers, which it has not always
escaped. Yet, in no other terms known to man is it possible so fully to
express the sense of insatiable craving and desire as well as the
rapture of intimate communion felt by the mystic towards his God, as in
th