Dark Night Of The Soul
DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL
St. John of the Cross
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.
"He soars on the wings of Divine love
"It is perhaps not an exaggeration to say that the verse and prose works
combined of St. John of the Cross form at once the most grandiose and the most
melodious spiritual canticle to which any one man has ever given utterance.
The most sublime of all the Spanish mystics, he soars aloft on the wings of
Divine love to heights known to hardly any of them. . . . True to the character of his
thought, his style is always forceful and energetic, even to a fault.
When we study his treatises—principally that great composite work known
as the Ascent of Mount Carmel and the Dark Night—we have the impression of a
mastermind that has scaled the heights of mystical science; and from their summit
looks down upon and dominates the plain below and the paths leading upward. . . .
Nowhere else, again, is he quite so appealingly human; for, though he is human
even in his loftiest and sublimest passages, his intermingling of philosophy with
mystical theology; makes him seem particularly so. These treatises are a wonderful
illustration of the theological truth that graced far from destroying nature, ennobles
and dignifies it, and of the agreement always found between the natural and the
supernatural—between the principles of sound reason and the sublimest
manifestations of Divine grace."
DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL
St. John of the Cross
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.
"He soars on the wings of Divine love
"It is perhaps not an exaggeration to say that the verse and prose works
combined of St. John of the Cross form at once the most grandiose and the most
melodious spiritual canticle to which any one man has ever given utterance.
The most sublime of all the Spanish mystics, he soars aloft on the wings of
Divine love to heights known to hardly any of them. . . . True to the character of his
thought, his style is always forceful and energetic, even to a fault.
When we study his treatises—principally that great composite work known
as the Ascent of Mount Carmel and the Dark Night—we have the impression of a
mastermind that has scaled the heights of mystical science; and from their summit
looks down upon and dominates the plain below and the paths leading upward. . . .
Nowhere else, again, is he quite so appealingly human; for, though he is human
even in his loftiest and sublimest passages, his intermingling of philosophy with
mystical theology; makes him seem particularly so. These treatises are a wonderful
illustration of the theological truth that graced far from destroying nature, ennobles
and dignifies it, and of the agreement always found between the natural and the
supernatural—between the principles of sound reason and the sublimest
manifestations of Divine grace."
E. ALLISON PEERS
