THE CRESCENT MOON BOOK OF MYSTICAL POETRY

Edited and introduced by Carol Appleby

The mystical poets featured here include William Blake, Walt Whitman, William Wordsworth, John Keats, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Richard Crashaw, Percy Shelley, Ralph Waldo Emerson, George Herbert, Longfellow, Gerald Hopkins, Thomas Traherne, William Shakespeare, Richard Rolle, Julian of Norwich, D.H. Lawrence and anonymous mediaeval works, such as The Cloud of Unknowing.

The mystical poetry in English in this book takes in pantheism in nature poetry (in the work of Wordsworth, Whitman, Coleridge and Keats), as well as the more orthodox Christian poetry (in the poesie of Donne, and Traherne). Although most of the writers here are British, the book includes some American writers: Henry Longfellow, Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman.

Walt Whitman is the grand master of pantheistic poetry, a truly abundant poet, one of the most exuberant voices in poetry. He simply could not stop himself from writing like a flood. Many mystical poets are like this: the experience ignites them, and sets the words flowing. Some mystics and mystical poets write long works, in order to circumscribe their experience (think of St John of the Cross, or Meister Eckhart, Dante Alighieri or William Wordsworth).

With an introduction and bibliography. The text has been revised for this edition, with new poems added. Includes a new gallery of poets. Also available in an E-book edition. www.crmoon.com.