illed with ever new delight.

Now I behold what most I sought;
Fulfilled at last my longing thought;
Lovesick, my soul to Jesus turns,
And all my heart within me burns.

(_Transl. by_ T.G. CRIPPEN.)

We read in his writings: "Blessed and sacred is he to whom it has been
given to experience this in his earthly life; even if he have
experienced it only once, for the space of a fleeting minute. For to
melt away completely, as it were, as if one had ceased to exist, to be
emptied of self, dissolved in holy emotion, has not been given to mortal
life, but is the state of the blessed."

I shall have to refer to both men in a future chapter, when I shall
examine the degenerate growths of metaphysical eroticism; for the ardour
of their souls was frequently kindled by sexual imaginings; in the case
of emotional mystics it is often difficult to distinguish between
sensual conceptions and the pure love of God (a fact which does not,
however, justify the superficial opinion that all mysticism is diverted
sexuality).

It is obvious that this love of God is not the original creation of the
lover, as is the deifying love of woman, but the mystic love whose
self-evident object is God or eternity. Jacopone's (and later on
Zinzendorf's) love of Jesus, though projected on a historical
personality, was fundamentally the same thing. The love of God also--and
in this connection I might mention Jacob Boehme, Alphonso da Liguori,
Novalis--is metaphysical eroticism; but I have restricted my subject to
the metaphysical love of woman, and shall not overstep my limits. I will
merely elucidate a little more the last scene of _Faust_.

_Pater seraphicus_, a title given both to St. Francis and to
Bonaventura--requires but a few words: he, too, praises metaphysical
love, the essence of the supreme spirits.

Thus the spirits' nature stealing
Through the ether's depths profound;
Love eternal, self-revealing,
Sheds beatitude around.

But even the _more perfect angels_ cannot free themselves from the
dualism of all things human (body and soul)--an unmistakable confession
of metaphysical dualism:

Parts them God's love alone,
Their union ending.

The identity of the last scene of _Faust_, Goethe's masterpiece, and the
conclusion of Dante's _Divine Comedy_, is so obvious that I do not think
any one could deny it. I have pointed out the thought underlying both
works,