Sunday, October 3, 2010

The Dark Night

Songs of the Soul that rejoices in having reached the high state of perfection, which is union with God, by the path of spiritual negation.

1. One dark night,
fired with love's urgent longings
-ah the sheer grace!-
I went out unseen,
my house being now all stilled.

2. In darkness, and secure,
by the secret ladder, disguised.
-ah, the sheer grace!-
in darkness and concealment,
my house being now stilled.

3. On that glad night
in secret, gor no one saw me,
nor did I look at anything
with no other light or guide
than the one that burned in my heart.

4. This guided me
more surely than the light of noon
to where he was waiting me
-him I know so well-
there in a place where no one appeared.

5. O guiding night!
O night more lovely than the dawn!
O night that has united
the Lover with his beloved,
transforming the beloved in her Lover.

6. Upon my flowering breast,
which I kept wholly for him alone,
there he lay sleeping,
and I caressing him
there in a breeze from the fanning cedars.

7. When then breeze blew from the turret,
as I parted his hair,
it wounded my neck
with its gentle hand,
suspending all my senses.

8. I abandoned and forgot myself,
laying my face on my Beloved;
all things ceased; I went out from my self,
leaving me cares
forgotten among the lilies.

- St. John of the Cross
Poetry - 2

Source:

St. John of the Cross, Collected Works
Revised Edition
Translated by:
Kieran Kavanaugh, OCD
Otilio Rodriguez, OCD


Image of St. John of the Cross

Wikipedia.com - St. John of the Cross
under Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License 3.0 (Unported). and the GNU Free Documentation License

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