DARK NIGHT

Here is a poem by the great Spanish mystic, John of the Cross. In touches on so many important metaphors of sacred poetry – darkness, light, a secret ladder, the heart, the joining of Lover and Beloved, silence, and death of the little self.

DARK NIGHT

On a dark secret night,

starving for love and deep in flame,

O happy lucky flight!

unseen I slipped away,

my house at last was calm and safe.

Blackly free from light,

disguised and down a secret way,

O happy lucky flight!

in darkness I escaped,

my house at last was calm and safe.

On that happy night – in

secret; no one saw me through the dark –

and I saw nothing then,

no other light to mark

the way but fire pounding my heart.

That flaming guided me

more firmly than the noonday sun,

and waiting there was he

I knew so well – who shone

where nobody appeared to come.

O night, my guide!

O night more friendly than the dawn!

O tender night that tied

lover and the loved one,

loved one in the lover fused as one!

On my flowering breasts

which I had saved for him alone,

he slept and I caressed

and fondled him with love,

and cedars fanned the air above.

Wind from the castle wall

while my fingers played in his hair:

its hand serenely fell

wounding my neck, and there

my senses vanished in the air.

I lay. Forgot my being,

and on my love I leaned my face.

All ceased. I left my being,

Leaving my cares to fade

among the lilies far away.

John of the Cross