The Spiritual Canticle

Where have you hidden,
Beloved, and left me moaning?
You fled like the stag
after wounding me;
I went out calling you, but you were gone.

Shepherds, you who go
up through the sheepfolds to the hill,
if by chance you see
him I love most,
tell him I am sick, I suffer, and I die.

Seeking my Love
I will head for the mountains and for watersides,
I will not gather flowers,
nor fear wild beasts;
I will go beyond strong men and frontiers.

O woods and thickets,
planted by the hand of my Beloved!
O green meadow,
coated, bright, with flowers,
tell me, has he passed by you?

Pouring out a thousand graces,
he passed these groves in haste;
and having looked at them,
with his image alone,
clothed them in beauty.

Ah, who has the power to heal me?
now wholly surrender yourself!
Do not send me
any more messengers,
they cannot tell me what I must hear.

All who are free
tell me a thousand graceful things of you;
all wound me more
and leave me dying
of, ah, I-don't-know-what behind their stammering.

How do you endure
O life, not living where you live,
and being brought near death
by the arrows you receive
from that which you conceive of your Beloved?

Why, since you wounded
this heart, don't you heal it?
And why, since you stole it from me,
do you leave it so,
and fail to carry off what you have stolen?

Extinguish these miseries,
since no one else can stamp them out;
and may my eyes behold you,
because you are their light,
and I would open them to you alone.

Reveal your presence,
and may the vision of your beauty be my death;
for the sickness of love
is not cured
except by your very presence and image.

O spring like crystal!
If only, on your silvered-over faces,
you would suddenly form
the eyes I have desired,
which I bear sketched deep within my heart.

Withdraw them, Beloved,
I am taking flight!

(St.John of the Cross)

FROM fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beauty's rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory:
But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed'st thy light'st flame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.
Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament
And only herald to the gaudy spring,
Within thine own bud buriest thy content
And, tender churl, makest waste in niggarding.
Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.

O happiness enjoy'd but of a few!
And, if possess'd, as soon decay'd and done
As is the morning's silver-melting dew
Against the golden splendor of the sun!
An expired date, cancell'd ere well begun:
Honour and beauty, in the owner's arms,
Are weakly fortress'd from a world of harms.
(Shakespeare)

Shall I compare thee to a Summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough wind do shake the darling buds of May,
And Summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometimes declines,
by chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd:
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
when in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:
So long as man can breathe,
or eyes can see,
So long lives this,
and this give life to thee.

(Shakespeare)

The Ascent of Mount Carmel_ the Negative Way

To reach satisfaction in all

desire its possession in nothing.

To come to possession in all

desire the possession of nothing.

To arrive at being all

desire to be nothing.

To come to the knowledge of all

desire the knowledge of nothing.

To come to the pleasure you have not

you must go by the way in which you enjoy not.

To come to the knowledge you have not

you must go by the way in which you know not.

To come to the possession you have not

you must go by the way in which you possess not.

To come by the what you are not

you must go by a way in which you are not.

When you turn toward something

you cease to cast yourself upon the all.

For to go from all to the all

you must deny yourself of all in all.

And when you come to the possession of the all

you must possess it without wanting anything.

Because if you desire to have something in all

your treasure in God is not purely your all."

(St.John of the Cross)

Ascent of Mount Carmel

En una noche oscura

En una noche oscura,
con ansias, en amores inflamada,
¡oh dichosa ventura!,
salí sin ser notada,
estando ya mi casa sosegada;

a escuras y segura
por la secreta escala, disfrazada,
¡oh dichosa ventura!,
a escuras y encelada,
estando ya mi casa sosegada;

en la noche dichosa,
en secreto, que naide me veía
ni yo miraba cisa,
sin otra luz y guía
sino la que en el corazón ardía.

Aquesta me guiaba
más cierto que la luz del mediodía
adonde me esperaba
quien yo bien me sabía
en parte donde naide parecía.

¡Oh noche que guiaste!
¡oh noche amable más que la alborada!;
¡oh noche que juntaste,
Amado con amada,
amada en el Amado transformada!

En mi pecho florido,
que entero para él solo se guardaba,
allí quedó dormido,
y yo le regalaba,
y el ventalle de cedros aire daba.

El aire del almena,
cuando yo sus cabellos esparcía,
con su mano serena
en mi cuello hería,
y todos mis sentidos suspendía.

Quedéme y olvidéme,
el rostro recliné sobre el Amado;
cesó todo y dejéme,
dejando mi cuidado
entre las azucenas olvidado.

(San Juan de la Cruz)

On a dark night

On a dark night,
Kindled in love with yearnings
--oh, happy chance!--
I went forth without being observed,
My house being now at rest.

In darkness and secure,
By the secret ladder, disguised
--oh, happy chance!--
In darkness and in concealment,
My house being now at rest.

In the happy night,
In secret, when none saw me,
Nor I beheld aught,
Without light or guide,
save that which burned in my heart.

This light guided me
More surely than the light of noonday
To the place where he
(well I knew who!) was awaiting me
-- A place where none appeared.

Oh, night that guided me,
Oh, night more lovely than the dawn,
Oh, night that joined
Beloved with lover,
Lover transformed in the Beloved!

Upon my flowery breast,
Kept wholly for himself alone,
There he stayed sleeping,
and I caressed him,
And the fanning of the cedars made a breeze.

The breeze blew from the turret
As I parted his locks;
With his gentle hand
He wounded my neck
And caused all my senses to be suspended.

I remained, lost in oblivion;
My face I reclined on the Beloved.
All ceased and I abandoned myself,
Leaving my cares
forgotten among the lilies.

(St. John of the Cross)

Deep in contemplation

I am alone
in this vast sea of tumultuous folks
waves of busybodies, appear and leave
how the splendour of past wisdoms faded
grief and despair replace tranquility and pleasure
misery and bliss alters

In this darkness
Cold withering breeze immersed me
alertness fails
spirit is fading
And at last awareness began to shift
I astrayed out of time and space
floating beyond the vision
and every surroundings are illusions
Very real and tangible delusions
Past and presents passed out
while memory hurls out everything it contains
and images of the pasts appear and dim
The very moment I perceive something
on how this lifeless order came to pass
why on earth this toils and harshness ever exist
why agony and despair ever appears

O worldly misery..
consuming the world
you never understand the suffering of people
but why?
this endless torment is caused by themselves?

Ignorance and oblivion leads them
desire and vanity thrust them even further
the meaning of life have they forgotten
the essence of orders they disregard
why exchange life for mammon and fame
why can't the primary essences on things no longer valued
and the seemingly promising frivolous be sought

Now..
it's my soul complains
in dire needs for providence
longs for divine lights to illume
escorting me in the way to eternal peace
when the wavering trees whisper their sorrow
and their dreams of night o'er
when stones conceal their wails
and sad stars shimmers
I'm sitting here
in hunger for truth
seeking things that last

Multas per gentes et per aequora vectus advenio
has miseras ,frater, ad inferias
Ut te postremo donarem munere mortis
et mutam nequiquam alloquerer cinerem
quandoquidem fortuna mihi tete abstulit ipsum
Heu miser indigne frater adempte mihi
Nunc tamen interea haec, prisco quae more parentum
tradita sunt tristi munere ad inferias
Accipe fraterno multum manantia fletu
atque in perpetuum, frater, ave atque vale !
(Vergilius)

Through nations and seas have I come,
to carry out this wretched funeral, brother
That at last I may give you this final gift in death
and that I may speak in vain to silent ashes
Since fortune has borne yourself away from me
Oh, poor brother, snatched unfairly away from me
Now, though even these,which from antiquity and custom of our parent
have been handed down, a gift of sadness in the rites
Accept them, with many brotherly tears
and for eternity, my brother, hail and farewell !
(Virgil)