The contradictory nature of his belief is also arresting.  In the early part of the Hymne of Heavenly Beautie, in-speaking of the glory of God which is so dazzling that angels themselves may not endure His sight, he says, as Plato does,

The meanes, therefore, which unto us is lent
Him to behold, is on his workes to looke,
Which he hath made in beauty excellent.

This is the view of the true mystic, that God may be seen in all His works, by the eye which is itself purified.  Yet, in the last stanza of this beautiful Hymn, this is how Spenser views the joy of the union of the soul with its source, when it looks

            at last up to that Soveraine Light,
    From whose pure beams al perfect beauty springs,
    That kindleth love in every godly spright
    Even the love of God; which loathing brings
    Of this vile world and these gay-seeming things.

This is not the voice of the mystic.  It is the voice of the Puritan, who is also an artist, who shrinks from earthly beauty because it attracts him, who fears it, and tries to despise it.  In truth, the dominating feature in Spenser’s poetry is a curious blending of Puritanism of spirit with the Platonic mind.

In the seventeenth century, however, England is peculiarly rich in writers steeped in mystical thought.

First come the Quakers, headed by George Fox.  This rediscovery and assertion of the mystical element in religion gave rise to a great deal of writing, much of it very interesting to the student of religious thought.  Among the Journals of the early Quakers, and especially that of George Fox, there are passages which charm us with their sincerity, quaintness, and pure flame of enthusiasm, but these works cannot as a whole be ranked as literature.  Then we have the little group of Cambridge Platonists, Henry More, John Smith, Benjamin Whichcote, and John Norris of Bemerton.  These are all Platonic philosophers, and among their writings, and especially in those of John Norris, are many passages of mystical thought clothed in noble prose.  Henry More, who is also a poet, is in character a typical mystic, serene, buoyant, and so spiritually happy that, as he told a friend, he was sometimes “almost mad with pleasure.”  His poetical faculty is, however, entirely subordinated to his philosophy, and the larger portion of his work consists of passages from the Enneads of Plotinus turned into rather obscure verse.  So that he is not a poet and artist who, working in the sphere of the imagination, can directly present to us mystical thoughts and ideas, but rather a mystic philosopher who has versified some of his discourses.  At this time also many of the “metaphysical poets” are mystical in much of their thought.  Chief among these is John Donne, and we may also include Henry Vaughan, Traherne, Crashaw, and George Herbert.