But there is a form of ecstasy in a species of mysticism that is universal and modern, and will appeal to all in spite of their religious beliefs. When the poet recognizing God in nature seeks to identify himself with nature by love and admiration for her, by a passion for a life that is in accordance with her commands, his poetry embodying such ecstasy is universal and is lifted into a high plane. It becomes a sort of ecstatic statement of pantheistic philosophy that even the believer may accept. That is why the Persian poet, Jalalu 'l-Din Rumi, for example, appeals to us and why his works are of such high order.
Sufism or Persian mysticism began in asceticism and ended in pantheism. It became a desire of a union with nature. In fact, it was an ecstatic state of love for man, nature, God. It had its roots however in physical love, and a story is told of a man who, wanting to become a Sufi, was told first to love some woman. Some critics even declare that many of the Persian love poems are really mystical poems, and though this is only partly true, it is certain that the Persian mystical poems are really love poems.
The mystic poems of the later Mohammedan Sufis are in fact anti-Mohammedan, and yet by a curious paradox they become after much controversy acceptable to the Church.
There is also much that is modern in the Pre-buddhistic _Vedas_ and _Upanishads_, and in some Buddhistic works, because of the pantheistic character of the ideas and the universality of the emotions.
The ecstasy of the pantheistic mystic is a secular feeling that we all experience, and is the substance of literature in prose and verse. We have much modern mystical poetry that has a universal appeal; it is also pantheistic in character and shows the poet's desire for union not with an anthropomorphic God, but with nature whom he recognizes as his God. The best illustration of it is the famous passage in Wordsworth's lines composed above Tintern Abbey, in which he tells us he hears in nature "the still, sad music of humanity." The entire passage is great poetry, not because of the blank verse but because of the mystical pantheistic ecstasy.
Sane mystical poetry may then be of a very high order. You will find examples of it in Blake, Emerson, Tennyson, and Matthew Arnold. Shelley's _Hymn to Intellectual Beauty_, Browning's _Rabbi Ben Ezra_, Whitman's _Chanting the Square Deific_ and Swinburne's _Hertha_ are great mystical poems. These and others will be found in the _Oxford Book of Mystical Verse_, collected by D. H. S. Nicholson and A. H. E. Lee.