Do they move with empty minds so that
Meditation may have room enough?
Or are they filled with this world's appetites
Which must be cleared out by a perfect love?

Imagination shaping poems can seem
The purest moments of one's life and yet
We know, when coming from that trance, a dream
Was working in us and the poem is set

Down and finished, such experience
May seem at times like a perfect meditation
But words or images are what enchants,
What seemed like prayer was only concentration

from 'Hermits and Poets', In the Meantime

Every Changing Shape, published in 1961 and now in paperback for the first time, considers from a Christian poet's perspective how religious or mystical experience informs the imagination. Elizabeth Jennings wrote the book early in her career; it continues to provide crucial readings of her chosen authors and clues to her own poetry.

She avoids terms like 'inspiration', 'ecstasy', sticking to particulars - words, meanings - rather than ideology or theory. A collection of studies of writers and mystics past and present, it brings literary judgement to bear on a subject neglected in a secular age. Though her first concern is poetry, she draws on prose writers to effect her penetrating explorations.