BY

ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS

TRANSLATED BY

DAVID LEWIS

WITH CORRECTIONS AND AN INTRODUCTION BY

  BENEDICT ZIMMERMAN, O.C.D.

    Prior of St. Lukes, Wincanton

    June 28, 1909

    This Electronic Text is in the Public Domain

INTRODUCTION

   THE present volume of the works of St. John of the Cross contains the
   explanation of the œSpiritual Canticle of the Soul and the Bridegroom
   Christ. The two earlier works, the œAscent of Mount Carmel and the œDark
   Night of the Soul, dealt with the cleansing of the soul, the unremittant
   war against even the smallest imperfections standing in the way of union
   with God; imperfections which must be removed, partly by strict
   self-discipline, partly by the direct intervention of God, Who, searching
   œthe reins and hearts by means of heavy interior and exterior trials,
   purges away whatever is displeasing to Him. Although some stanzas refer to
   this preliminary state, the chief object of the œSpiritual Canticle is to
   picture under the Biblical simile of Espousals and Matrimony the blessedness
   of a soul that has arrived at union with God.

   The Canticle was composed during the long imprisonment St. John underwent at
   Toledo from the beginning of December 1577 till the middle of August of the
   following year. Being one of the principal supporters of the Reform of St.
   Teresa, he was also one of the victims of the war waged against her work by
   the Superiors of the old branch of the Order. St. Johns prison was a
   narrow, stifling cell, with no window, but only a small loophole through
   which a ray of light entered for a short time of the day, just long enough
   to enable him to say his office, but affording little facility for reading
   or writing. However, St. John stood in no need of books. Having for many
   years meditated on every word of Holy Scripture, the Word of God was deeply
   written in his heart, supplying abundant food for conversation with God
   during the whole period of his imprisonment. From time to time he poured
   forth his soul in poetry; afterwards he communicated his verses to friends.

   One of these poetical works, the fruit of his imprisonment, was the
   Spiritual Canticle, which, as the reader will notice, is an abridged
   paraphrase of the Canticle of Canticles, the Song of Solomon, wherein under
   the image of passionate love are described the mystical sufferings and
   longings of a soul enamored with God.

   From the earliest times the Fathers and Doctors of the Church had recognized
   the mystical character of the Canticle, and the Church had largely utilized
   it in her liturgy. But as there is nothing so holy but that it may be
   abused, the Canticle almost more than any other portion of Holy Scripture,
   had been misinterpreted by a false Mysticism, such as was rampant in the
   middle of the sixteenth century. It had come to pass, said the learned and
   saintly Augustinian, Fray Luis de Leon, that that which was given as a
   medicine was turned into poison, [1] so that the Ecclesiastical authority,
   by the Index of 1559, forbade the circulation of the Bible or parts of the
   Bible in any but the original languages, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin; and no
   one knew better than Luis de Leon himself how rigorously these rules were
   enforced, for he had to expiate by nearly five years imprisonment the
   audacity of having translated into Castilian the Canticle of Canticles. [2]

   Again, one of the confessors of St. Teresa, commonly thought to have been
   the Dominican, Fray Diego de Yanguas, on learning that the Saint had written
   a book on the Canticle, ordered her to throw it into the fire, so that we
   now only possess a few fragments of her work, which, unknown to St. Teresa,
   had been copied by a nun.

   It will now be understood that St. Johns poetical paraphrase of the
   Canticle must have been welcome to many contemplative souls who desired to
   kindle their devotion with the words of Solomon, but were unable to read
   them in Latin. Yet the text alone, without explanation, would have helped
   them little; and as no one was better qualified than the author to throw
   light on the mysteries hidden under oriental imagery, the Venerable Ann of
   Jesus, Prioress of the Carmelite convent at Granada, requested St. John to
   write a commentary on his verses. [3] He at first excused himself, saying
   that he was no longer in that state of spiritual exuberance in which he had
   been when composing the Canticle, and that there only remained to him a
   confused recollection of the wonderful operations of Divine grace during the
   period of his imprisonment. Ann of Jesus was not satisfied with this answer;
   she not only knew that St. John had lost nothing of his fervor, though he
   might no longer experience the same feelings, but she remembered what had
   happened to St. Teresa under similar circumstances, and believed the same
   thing might happen to St. John. When St. Teresa was obliged to write on some
   mystical phenomena, the nature of which she did not fully understand, or
   whose effect she had forgotten, God granted her unexpectedly a repetition of
   her former experiences so as to enable her to fully study the matter and
   report on it. [4] Venerable Ann of Jesus felt sure that if St. John
   undertook to write an explanation of the Canticle he would soon find himself
   in the same mental attitude as when he composed it.

   St. John at last consented, and wrote the work now before us. The following
   letter, which has lately come to light, gives some valuable information of
   its composition. The writer, Magdalen of the Holy Spirit, nun of Veas, where
   she was professed on August 6, 1577, was intimately acquainted with the
   Saint.

   When the holy father escaped from prison, he took with him a book of poetry
   he had written while there, containing the verses commencing ˜In the
   beginning was the Word, and those others: ˜I know the fountain well which
   flows and runs, though it is night, and the canticle, ˜Where have you
   hidden yourself? as far as ˜O nymphs of Judea (stanza XVIII.). The
   remaining verses he composed later on while rector of the college of Baeza
   (15791 “ 81), while some of the explanations were written at Veas at the
   request of the nuns, and others at Granada. The Saint wrote this book in
   prison and afterwards left it at Veas, where it was handed to me to make
   some copies of it. Later on it was taken away from my cell, and I never knew
   who took it. I was much struck with the vividness and the beauty and
   subtlety of the words. One day I asked the Saint whether God had given him
   these words which so admirably explain those mysteries, and He answered:
   ˜Child, sometimes God gave them to me, and at other times I sought them
   myself. [5]

   The autograph of St. Johns work which is preserved at Jaén bears the
   following title:

     Explanation of Stanzas treating of the exercise of love between the soul
     and Jesus Christ its Spouse, dealing with and commenting on certain points
     and effects of prayer; written at the request of Mother Ann of Jesus,
     prioress of the Discalced Carmelite nuns of St. Josephs convent, Granada,
     1584.

   As might be expected, the author dedicated the book to Ann of Jesus, at
   whose request he had written it. Thus, he began his Prologue with the
   following words: Inasmuch as this canticle, Reverend Mother (Religiosa
   Madre), seems to have been written, etc. A little further on he said: The
   stanzas that follow, having been written under the influence of that love
   which proceeds from the overflowing mystical intelligence, cannot be fully
   explained. Indeed, I do not purpose any such thing, for my sole purpose is
   to throw some general light over them, since Your Reverence has asked me to
   do so, and since this, in my opinion too, is the better course. And again:
   I shall, however, pass over the more ordinary (effects of prayer), and
   treat briefly of the more extraordinary to which they are subject who, by
   the mercy of God, have advanced beyond the state of beginners. This I do for
   two reasons: the first is that much is already written concerning beginners;
   and the second is that I am addressing myself to Your Reverence at your own
   bidding; for you have received from Our Lord the grace of being led on from
   the elementary state and led inwards to the bosom of His divine love. He
   continues thus: I therefore trust, though I may discuss some points of
   scholastic theology relating to the interior commerce of the soul with God,
   that I am not using such language altogether in vain, and that it will be
   found profitable for pure spirituality. For though Your Reverence is
   ignorant of scholastic theology, you are by no means ignorant of mystical
   theology, the science of love, etc.

   From these passages it appears quite clearly that the Saint wrote the book
   for Venerable Ann of Jesus and the nuns of her convent. With the exception
   of an edition published at Brussels in 1627, these personal allusions have
   disappeared from both the Spanish text and the translations, [6] nor are
   they to be found in Mr. Lewiss version. There cannot be the least doubt
   that they represent St. Johns own intention, for they are to be found in
   his original manuscript. This, containing, in several parts, besides the
   Explanation of the Spiritual Canticle, various poems by the Saint, was given
   by him to Ann of Jesus, who in her turn committed it to the care of one of
   her nuns, Isabelle of the Incarnation, who took it with her to Baeza, where
   she remained eleven years, and afterwards to Jaén, where she founded a
   convent of which she became the first prioress. She there caused the
   precious manuscript to be bound in red velvet with silver clasps and gilt
   edges. It still was there in 1876, and, for all we know, remains to the
   present day in the keeping of the said convent. It is a pity that no
   photographic edition of the writings of St. John (so far as the originals
   are preserved) has yet been attempted, for there is need for a critical
   edition of his works.

   The following is the division of the work: Stanzas I. to IV. are
   introductory; V. to XII. refer to the contemplative life in its earlier
   stages; XIII. to XXI., dealing with what the Saint calls the Espousals,
   appertain to the Unitive way, where the soul is frequently, but not
   habitually, admitted to a transient union with God; and XXII. to the end
   describe what he calls Matrimony, the highest perfection a soul can attain
   this side of the grave. The reader will find an epitome of the whole system
   of mystical theology in the explanation of Stanza XXVI.

   This work differs in many respects from the Ascent and the Dark Night.
   Whereas these are strictly systematic, preceding on the line of relentless
   logic, the Spiritual Canticle, as a poetical work ought to do, soars high
   above the divisions and distinctions of the scholastic method. With a
   boldness akin to that of his Patron Saint, the Evangelist, St. John rises to
   the highest heights, touching on a subject that should only be handled by a
   Saint, and which the reader, were he a Saint himself, will do well to treat
   cautiously: the partaking by the human soul of the Divine Nature, or, as St.
   John calls it, the Deification of the soul (Stanza XXVI. sqq.), These are
   regions where the ordinary mind threatens to turn; but St. John, with the
   knowledge of what he himself had experienced, not once but many times, what
   he had observed in others, and what, above all, he had read of in Holy
   Scripture, does not shrink from lifting the veil more completely than
   probably any Catholic writer on mystical theology has done. To pass in
   silence the last wonders of Gods love for fear of being misunderstood,
   would have been tantamount to ignoring the very end for which souls are led
   along the way of perfection; to reveal these mysteries in human language,
   and say all that can be said with not a word too much, not an uncertain or
   misleading line in the picture: this could only have been accomplished by
   one whom the Church has already declared to have been taught by God Himself
   (divinitus instructus), and whose books She tells us are filled with
   heavenly wisdom (coelesti sapientia refertos). It is hoped that sooner or
   later She will proclaim him (what many grave authorities think him to be) a
   Doctor of the Church, namely, the Doctor of Mystical theology. [7]

   As has already been noticed in the Introduction to the Ascent, the whole
   of the teaching of St. John is directly derived from Holy Scripture and from
   the psychological principles of St. Thomas Aquinas. There is no trace to be
   found of an influence of the Mystics of the Middle Age, with whose writings
   St. John does not appear to have been acquainted. But throughout this
   treatise there are many obvious allusions to the writings of St. Teresa, nor
   will the reader fail to notice the encouraging remark about the publication
   of her works (stanza xiii, sect. 8). The fact is that the same Venerable Ann
   of Jesus who was responsible for the composition of St. Johns treatise was
   at the same time making preparations for the edition of St. Teresas works
   which a few years later appeared at Salamanca under the editorship of Fray
   Luis de Leon, already mentioned.

   Those of his readers who have been struck with, not to say frightened by,
   the exactions of St. John in the Ascent and the Dark Night, where he
   demands complete renunciation of every kind of satisfaction and pleasure,
   however legitimate in themselves, and an entire mortification of the senses
   as well as the faculties and powers of the soul, and who have been wondering
   at his self-abnegation which caused him not only to accept, but even to
   court contempt, will find here the clue to this almost inhuman attitude. In
   his response to the question of Our Lord, What shall I give you for all you
   have done and suffered for Me? Lord, to suffer and be despised for You
   ” he was not animated by grim misanthropy or stoic indifference, but he had
   learned that in proportion as the human heart is emptied of Self, after
   having been emptied of all created things, it is open to the influx of
   Divine grace. This he fully proves in the Spiritual Canticle. To be made
   partaker of the Divine Nature, as St. Peter says, human nature must
   undergo a radical transformation. Those who earnestly study the teaching of
   St. John in his earlier treatises and endeavor to put his recommendations
   into practice, will see in this and the next volume an unexpected
   perspective opening before their eyes, and they will begin to understand how
   it is that the sufferings of this time ” whether voluntary or involuntary
   ” are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come that shall be
   revealed in us.

   Mr. Lewiss masterly translation of the works of St. John of the Cross
   appeared in 1864 under the auspices of Cardinal Wiseman. In the second
   edition, of 1889, he made numerous changes, without, however, leaving a
   record of the principles that guided him. Sometimes, indeed, the revised
   edition is terser than the first, but just as often the old one seems
   clearer. It is more difficult to understand the reasons that led him to
   alter very extensively the text of quotations from Holy Scripture. In the
   first edition he had nearly always strictly adhered to the Douay version,
   which is the one in official use in the Catholic Church in English-speaking
   countries. It may not always be as perfect as one would wish it to be, but
   it must be acknowledged that the wholesale alteration in Mr. Lewiss second
   edition is, to say the least, puzzling. Even the Stanzas have undergone many
   changes in the second edition, and it will be noticed that there are some
   variants in their text as set forth at the beginning of the book, and as
   repeated at the heading of each chapter.

   The present edition, allowing for some slight corrections, is a reprint of
   that of 1889.

   Benedict Zimmerman, Prior, O.C.D.
   St. Lukes, Wincanton, Somerset,
   Feast of St. Simon Stock,
   May 16, 1909.
     _________________________________________________________________

   [1] ˜Los nombres de Cristo. Introduction.

   [2] This exceptionally severe legislation, justified by the dangers of the
   time, only held good for Spain and the Spanish colonies, and has long since
   been revised. It did not include the Epistles and Gospels, Psalms, Passion,
   and other parts of the daily service.

   [3] Ann de Lobera, born at Medina del Campo, November 25, 1545, was a
   deaf-mute until her eighth year. When she applied for admission to the
   Carmelite convent at Avila St. Teresa promised to receive her not so much as
   a novice, but as her companion and future successor; she took the habit
   August 1, 1570, and made her profession at Salamanca, October 21, 1571. She
   became the first prioress of Veas, and was entrusted by St. Teresa with the
   foundation of Granada (January 1582), where she found St. John of the Cross,
   who was prior of the convent of The Martyrs (well known to visitors of the
   Alhambra although no longer a convent). St. John not only became the
   director and confessor of the convent of nuns, but remained the most
   faithful helper and the staunchest friend of Mother Ann throughout the heavy
   trials which marred many years of her life. In 1604 she went to Paris, to
   found the first convent of her Order in France, and in 1607 she proceeded to
   Brussels, where she remained until her death, March 4, 1621, The heroic
   nature of her virtues having been acknowledged, she was declared
   ˜Venerable in 1878, and it is hoped that she will soon be beatified.

   [4] See ˜Life of St. Teresa: ed. Baker (London, I904), ch. xiv. 12, xvi. 2,
   xviii. 10.

   [5] ˜Manuel Serrano y Sanz, Apuntos para una Biblioteca de Escritores
   españoles. (1903, p. 399).

   [6] Cf. Berthold-Ignace de Sainte Anne, ˜Vie de la Mère Anne de Jésui
   (Malines, 1876), I. 343 ff.

   [7] On this subject see Fray Eulogio de San José, ˜Doctorado de Santa Teresa
   de Jesús y de San Juan de la Cruz. Córdoba, 1896.
     _________________________________________________________________

A SPIRITUAL CANTICLE OF THE SOUL AND THE BRIDEGROOM CHRIST [8]

PROLOGUE

   INASMUCH as this canticle seems to have been written with some fervor of
   love of God, whose wisdom and love are, as is said in the book of Wisdom,
   [9] so vast that they reach from end to end, and as the soul, taught and
   moved by Him, manifests the same abundance and strength in the words it
   uses, I do not purpose here to set forth all that greatness and fullness the
   spirit of love, which is fruitful, embodies in it. Yes, rather it would be
   foolishness to think that the language of love and the mystical intelligence
   ” and that is what these stanzas are ” can be at all explained in words of
   any kind, for the Spirit of our Lord who helps our weakness ” as St. Paul
   says [10] ” dwelling in us makes petitions for us with groaning unutterable
   for that which we cannot well understand or grasp so as to be able to make
   it known. The Spirit helps our infirmity . . . the Spirit Himself requests
   for us with groanings unspeakable. For who can describe that which He shows
   to loving souls in whom He dwells? Who can set forth in words that which He
   makes them feel? and, lastly, who can explain that for which they long?

   2. Assuredly no one can do it; not even they themselves who experience it.
   That is the reason why they use figures of special comparisons and
   similitudes; they hide somewhat of that which they feel and in the abundance
   of the Spirit utter secret mysteries rather than express themselves in clear
   words.

   3. And if these similitudes are not received in the simplicity of a loving
   mind, and in the sense in which they are uttered, they will seem to be
   effusions of folly rather than the language of reason; as anyone may see in
   the divine Canticle of Solomon, and in others of the sacred books, wherein
   the Holy Spirit, because ordinary and common speech could not convey His
   meaning, uttered His mysteries in strange terms and similitudes. It follows
   from this, that after all that the holy doctors have said, and may say, no
   words of theirs can explain it; nor can words do it; and so, in general, all
   that is said falls far short of the meaning.

   4. The stanzas that follow having been written under influence of that love
   which proceeds from the overflowing mystical intelligence, cannot be fully
   explained. Indeed I do not purpose any such thing, for my sole object is to
   throw some general light over them, which in my opinion is the better
   course. It is better to leave the outpourings of love in their own fullness,
   that everyone may apply them according to the measure of his spirit and
   power, than to pare them down to one particular sense which is not suited to
   the taste of everyone. And though I do put forth a particular explanation,
   still others are not to be bound by it. The mystical wisdom ” that is, the
   love, of which these stanzas speak ” does not require to be distinctly
   understood in order to produce the effect of love and tenderness in the
   soul, for it is in this respect like faith, by which we love God without a
   clear comprehension of Him.

   5. I shall therefore be very concise, though now and then unable to avoid
   some prolixity where the subject requires it, and when the opportunity is
   offered of discussing and explaining certain points and effects of prayer:
   many of which being referred to in these stanzas, I must discuss some of
   them. I shall, however, pass over the more ordinary ones, and treat briefly
   of the more extraordinary to which they are subject who, by the mercy of
   God, have advanced beyond the state of beginners. This I do for two reasons:
   the first is, that much is already written concerning beginners; and the
   second is, that I am addressing those who have received from our Lord the
   grace of being led on from the elementary state and are led inwards to the
   bosom of His divine love.

   6. I therefore trust, though I may discuss some points of scholastic
   theology relating to the interior commerce of the soul with God, that I am
   not using such language altogether in vain, and that it will be found
   profitable for pure spirituality. For though some may be altogether ignorant
   of scholastic theology by which the divine verities are explained, yet they
   are not ignorant of mystical theology, the science of love, by which those
   verities are not only learned, but at the same time are relished also.

   7. And in order that what I am going to say may be the better received, I
   submit myself to higher judgments, and unreservedly to that of our holy
   mother the Church, intending to say nothing in reliance on my own personal
   experience, or on what I have observed in other spiritual persons, nor on
   what I have heard them say ” though I intend to profit by all this ” unless
   I can confirm it with the sanction of the divine writings, at least on those
   points which are most difficult of comprehension.

   8. The method I propose to follow in the matter is this: first of all, to
   cite the words of the text and then to give that explanation of them which
   belongs to the subject before me. I shall now transcribe all the stanzas and
   place them at the beginning of this treatise. In the next place, I shall
   take each of them separately, and explain them line by line, each line in
   its proper place before the explanation.
     _________________________________________________________________

   [8] [This canticle was made by the Saint when he was in the prison of the
   Mitigation, in Toledo. It came into the hands of the Venerable Anne of
   Jesus, at whose request he wrote the following commentary on it, and
   addressed it to her.]

   [9] Wisdom 8:1

   [10] Rom. 8:26
     _________________________________________________________________

SONG OF THE SOUL AND THE BRIDEGROOM

    I

    THE BRIDE


   Where have You hidden Yourself,

   And abandoned me in my groaning, O my Beloved?

   You have fled like the hart,

   Having wounded me.

   I ran after You, crying; but You were gone.

    II


   O shepherds, you who go

   Through the sheepcots up the hill,

   If you shall see Him

   Whom I love the most,

   Tell Him I languish, suffer, and die.

    III


   In search of my Love

   I will go over mountains and strands;

   I will gather no flowers,

   I will fear no wild beasts;

   And pass by the mighty and the frontiers.

    IV


   O groves and thickets

   Planted by the hand of the Beloved;

   O verdant meads

   Enameled with flowers,

   Tell me, has He passed by you?

    V

    ANSWER OF THE CREATURES


   A thousand graces diffusing

   He passed through the groves in haste,

   And merely regarding them

   As He passed

   Clothed them with His beauty.

    VI

    THE BRIDE


   Oh! who can heal me?

   Give me at once Yourself,

   Send me no more

   A messenger

   Who cannot tell me what I wish.

    VII


   All they who serve are telling me

   Of Your unnumbered graces;

   And all wound me more and more,

   And something leaves me dying,

   I know not what, of which they are darkly speaking.

    VIII


   But how you persevere, O life,

   Not living where you live;

   The arrows bring death

   Which you receive

   From your conceptions of the Beloved.

    IX


   Why, after wounding

   This heart, have You not healed it?

   And why, after stealing it,

   Have You thus abandoned it,

   And not carried away the stolen prey?

    X


   Quench my troubles,

   For no one else can soothe them;

   And let my eyes behold You,

   For You are their light,

   And I will keep them for You alone.

    XI


   Reveal Your presence,

   And let the vision and Your beauty kill me,

   Behold the malady

   Of love is incurable

   Except in Your presence and before Your face.

    XII


   O crystal well!

   Oh that on Your silvered surface

   You would mirror forth at once

   Those eyes desired

   Which are outlined in my heart!

    XIII


   Turn them away, O my Beloved!

   I am on the wing:

    THE BRIDEGROOM


   Return, My Dove!

   The wounded hart

   Looms on the hill

   In the air of your flight and is refreshed.

    XIV


   My Beloved is the mountains,

   The solitary wooded valleys,

   The strange islands,

   The roaring torrents,

   The whisper of the amorous gales;

    XV


   The tranquil night

   At the approaches of the dawn,

   The silent music,

   The murmuring solitude,

   The supper which revives, and enkindles love.

    XVI


   Catch us the foxes,

   For our vineyard has flourished;

   While of roses

   We make a nosegay,

   And let no one appear on the hill.

    XVII


   O killing north wind, cease!

   Come, south wind, that awakens love!

   Blow through my garden,

   And let its odors flow,

   And the Beloved shall feed among the flowers.

    XVIII


   O nymphs of Judea!

   While amid the flowers and the rose-trees

   The amber sends forth its perfume,

   Tarry in the suburbs,

   And touch not our thresholds.

    XIX


   Hide yourself, O my Beloved!

   Turn Your face to the mountains,

   Do not speak,

   But regard the companions

   Of her who is traveling amidst strange islands.

    XX

    THE BRIDEGROOM


   Light-winged birds,

   Lions, fawns, bounding does,

   Mountains, valleys, strands,

   Waters, winds, heat,

   And the terrors that keep watch by night;

    XXI


   By the soft lyres

   And the siren strains, I adjure you,

   Let your fury cease,

   And touch not the wall,

   That the bride may sleep in greater security.

    XXII


   The bride has entered

   The pleasant and desirable garden,

   And there reposes to her hearts content;

   Her neck reclining

   On the sweet arms of the Beloved.

    XXIII


   Beneath the apple-tree

   There were you betrothed;

   There I gave you My hand,

   And you were redeemed

   Where your mother was corrupted.

    XXIV

    THE BRIDE


   Our bed is of flowers

   By dens of lions encompassed,

   Hung with purple,

   Made in peace,

   And crowned with a thousand shields of gold.

    XXV


   In Your footsteps

   The young ones run Your way;

   At the touch of the fire

   And by the spiced wine,

   The divine balsam flows.

    XXVI


   In the inner cellar

   Of my Beloved have I drunk; and when I went forth

   Over all the plain

   I knew nothing,

   And lost the flock I followed before.

    XXVII


   There He gave me His breasts,

   There He taught me the science full of sweetness.

   And there I gave to Him

   Myself without reserve;

   There I promised to be His bride.

    XXVIII


   My soul is occupied,

   And all my substance in His service;

   Now I guard no flock,

   Nor have I any other employment:

   My sole occupation is love.

    XXIX


   If, then, on the common land

   I am no longer seen or found,

   You will say that I am lost;

   That, being enamored,

   I lost myself; and yet was found.

    XXX


   Of emeralds, and of flowers

   In the early morning gathered,

   We will make the garlands,

   Flowering in Your love,

   And bound together with one hair of my head.

    XXXI


   By that one hair

   You have observed fluttering on my neck,

   And on my neck regarded,

   You were captivated;

   And wounded by one of my eyes.

    XXXII


   When You regarded me,

   Your eyes imprinted in me Your grace:

   For this You loved me again,

   And thereby my eyes merited

   To adore what in You they saw

    XXXIII


   Despise me not,

   For if I was swarthy once

   You can regard me now;

   Since You have regarded me,

   Grace and beauty have You given me.

    XXXIV

    THE BRIDEGROOM


   The little white dove

   Has returned to the ark with the bough;

   And now the turtle-dove

   Its desired mate

   On the green banks has found.

    XXXV


   In solitude she lived,

   And in solitude built her nest;

   And in solitude, alone

   Has the Beloved guided her,

   In solitude also wounded with love.

    XXXVI

    THE BRIDE


   Let us rejoice, O my Beloved!

   Let us go forth to see ourselves in Your beauty,

   To the mountain and the hill,

   Where the pure water flows:

   Let us enter into the heart of the thicket.

    XXXVII


   We shall go at once

   To the deep caverns of the rock

   Which are all secret,

   There we shall enter in

   And taste of the new wine of the pomegranate.

    XXXVIII


   There you will show me

   That which my soul desired;

   And there You will give at once,

   O You, my life!

   That which You gave me the other day.

    XXXIX


   The breathing of the air,

   The song of the sweet nightingale,

   The grove and its beauty

   In the serene night,

   With the flame that consumes, and gives no pains.

    XL


   None saw it;

   Neither did Aminadab appear

   The siege was intermitted,

   And the cavalry dismounted

   At the sight of the waters.
     _________________________________________________________________

ARGUMENT

   THESE stanzas describe the career of a soul from its first entrance on the
   service of God till it comes to the final state of perfection ” the
   spiritual marriage. They refer accordingly to the three states or ways of
   the spiritual training ” the purgative, illuminative, and unitive ways, some
   properties and effects of which they explain.

   The first stanzas relate to beginners ” to the purgative way. The second to
   the advanced ” to the state of spiritual betrothal; that is, the
   illuminative way. The next to the unitive way ” that of the perfect, the
   spiritual Marriage. The unitive way, that of the perfect, follows the
   illuminative, which is that of the advanced.

   The last stanzas treat of the beatific state, which only the already perfect
   soul aims at.
     _________________________________________________________________

EXPLANATION OF THE STANZAS

    NOTE

   THE soul, considering the obligations of its state, seeing that the days of
   man are short; [11] that the way of eternal life is straight; [12] that
   the just man shall scarcely be saved; [13] that the things of this world
   are empty and deceitful; that all die and perish like water poured on the
   ground; [14] that time is uncertain, the last account strict, perdition most
   easy, and salvation most difficult; and recognizing also, on the other hand,
   the great debt that is owing to God, Who has created it solely for Himself,
   for which the service of its whole life is due, Who has redeemed it for
   Himself alone, for which it owes Him all else, and the correspondence of its
   will to His love; and remembering other innumerable blessings for which it
   acknowledges itself indebted to God even before it was born: and also that a
   great part of its life has been wasted, and that it will have to render an
   account of it all from beginning to the end, to the payment of the last
   farthing, [15] when God shall search Jerusalem with lamps; [16] that it
   is already late, and perhaps the end of the day: [17] in order to remedy so
   great an evil, especially when it is conscious that God is grievously
   offended, and that He has hidden His face from it, because it would forget
   Him for the creature,-the soul, now touched with sorrow and inward sinking
   of the heart at the sight of its imminent risks and ruin, renouncing
   everything and casting them aside without delaying for a day, or even an
   hour, with fear and groanings uttered from the heart, and wounded with the
   love of God, begins to invoke the Beloved and says:
     _________________________________________________________________

   [11] Job 14:5

   [12] Matt. 7:14

   [13] 1 Pet. 4:18

   [14] 2 Kings 14:14

   [15] Matt. 5:26

   [16] Sophon, 1. 12.

   [17] Matt. 20:6
     _________________________________________________________________

STANZA I

    THE BRIDE


   Where have You hidden Yourself,

   And abandoned me to my sorrow, O my Beloved!

   You have fled like the hart,

   Having wounded me.

   I ran after You, crying; but You were gone.

   IN this first stanza the soul, enamored of the Word, the Son of God, the
   Bridegroom, desiring to be united to Him in the clear and substantial
   vision, sets before Him the anxieties of its love, complaining of His
   absence. And this the more so because, now pierced and wounded with love,
   for which it had abandoned all things, even itself, it has still to endure
   the absence of the Beloved, Who has not released it from its mortal flesh,
   that it might have the fruition of Him in the glory of eternity. Hence it
   cries out,


   Where have You hidden Yourself?

   2. It is as if the soul said, Show me, O You the Word, my Bridegroom, the
   place where You are hidden. It asks for the revelation of the divine
   Essence; for the place where the Son of God is hidden is, according to St.
   John, the bosom of the Father, [18] which is the divine Essence,
   transcending all mortal vision, and hidden from all human understanding, as
   Isaiah says, speaking to God, Verily You are a hidden God. [19] From this
   we learn that the communication and sense of His presence, however great
   they may be, and the most sublime and profound knowledge of God which the
   soul may have in this life, are not God essentially, neither have they any
   affinity with Him, for in very truth He is still hidden from the soul; and
   it is therefore expedient for it, amid all these grandeurs, always to
   consider Him as hidden, and to seek Him in His hiding place, saying,


   Where have You hidden Yourself?

   3. Neither sublime communications nor sensible presence furnish any certain
   proof of His gracious presence; nor is the absence thereof, and aridity, any
   proof of His absence from the soul. If He come to me, I shall not see Him;
   if He depart, I shall not understand. [20] That is, if the soul have any
   great communication, or impression, or spiritual knowledge, it must not on
   that account persuade itself that what it then feels is to enjoy or see God
   clearly and in His Essence, or that it brings it nearer to Him, or Him to
   it, however deep such feelings may be. On the other hand, when all these
   sensible and spiritual communications fail it, and it is itself in dryness,
   darkness, and desolation, it must not on that account suppose that God is
   far from it; for in truth the former state is no sign of its being in a
   state of grace, nor is the latter a sign that it is not; for man knows not
   whether he is worthy of love or hatred [21] in the sight of God.

   4. The chief object of the soul in these words is not to ask only for that
   affective and sensible devotion, wherein there is no certainty or evidence
   of the possession of the Bridegroom in this life; but principally for that
   clear presence and vision of His Essence, of which it longs to be assured
   and satisfied in the next. This, too, was the object of the bride who, in
   the divine song desiring to be united to the Divinity of the Bridegroom
   Word, prayed to the Father, saying, Show me where You feed, where You lie
   in the midday. [22] For to ask to be shown the place where He fed was to
   ask to be shown the Essence of the Divine Word, the Son; because the Father
   feeds nowhere else but in His only begotten Son, Who is the glory of the
   Father. In asking to be shown the place where He lies in the midday, was to
   ask for the same thing, because the Son is the sole delight of the Father,
   Who lies in no other place, and is comprehended by no other thing, but in
   and by His beloved Son, in Whom He reposes wholly, communicating to Him His
   whole Essence, in the midday, which is eternity, where the Father is ever
   begetting and the Son ever begotten.

   5. This pasture, then, is the Bridegroom Word, where the Father feeds in
   infinite glory. He is also the bed of flowers whereupon He reposes with
   infinite delight of love, profoundly hidden from all mortal vision and every
   created thing. This is the meaning of the bride-soul when she says,


   Where have You hidden Yourself?

   6. That the thirsty soul may find the Bridegroom, and be one with Him in the
   union of love in this life ” so far as that is possible ” and quench its
   thirst with that drink which it is possible to drink of at His hands in this
   life, it will be as well ” since that is what the Soul asks of Him ” that we
   should answer for Him, and point out the special spot where He is hidden,
   that He may be found there in that perfection and sweetness of which this
   life is capable, and that the soul may not begin to loiter uselessly in the
   footsteps of its companions.

   7. We must remember that the Word, the Son of God, together with the Father
   and the Holy Spirit, is hidden in essence and in presence, in the inmost
   being of the soul. That soul, therefore, that will find Him, must go out
   from all things in will and affection, and enter into the profoundest
   self-recollection, and all things must be to it as if they existed not.
   Hence, St. Augustine says: I found You not without, O Lord; I sought You
   without in vain, for You are within, [23] God is therefore hidden within
   the soul, and the true contemplative will seek Him there in love, saying,


   Where have You hidden Yourself?

   8. O you soul, then, most beautiful of creatures, who so long to know the
   place where your Beloved is, that you may seek Him, and be united to Him,
   you know now that you are yourself that very tabernacle where He dwells, the
   secret chamber of His retreat where He is hidden. Rejoice, therefore, and
   exult, because all your good and all your hope is so near you as to be
   within you; or, to speak more accurately, that you can not be without it,
   for lo, the kingdom of God is within you. [24] So says the Bridegroom
   Himself, and His servant, St. Paul, adds: You are the temple of the living
   God. [25] What joy for the soul to learn that God never abandons it, even
   in mortal sin; how much less in a state of grace! [26]

   9. What more can you desire, what more can you seek without, seeing that
   within you have your riches, your delight, your satisfaction, your fullness
   and your kingdom; that is, your Beloved, Whom you desire and seek? Rejoice,
   then, and be glad in Him with interior recollection, seeing that you have
   Him so near. Then love Him, then desire Him, then adore Him, and go not to
   seek Him out of yourself, for that will be but distraction and weariness,
   and you shall not find Him; because there is no fruition of Him more
   certain, more ready, or more intimate than that which is within.

   10. One difficulty alone remains: though He is within, yet He is hidden. But
   it is a great matter to know the place of His secret rest, that He may be
   sought there with certainty. The knowledge of this is that which you ask for
   here, O soul, when with loving affection you cry,


   Where have You hidden Yourself?

   11. You will still urge and say, How is it, then, that I find Him not, nor
   feel Him, if He is within my soul? It is because He is hidden, and because
   you hide not yourself also that you may find Him and feel Him; for he that
   will seek that which is hidden must enter secretly into the secret place
   where it is hidden, and when he finds it, he is himself hidden like the
   object of his search. Seeing, then, that the Bridegroom whom you love is
   the treasure hidden in the field [27] of your soul, for which the wise
   merchant gave all that he had, so you, if you will find Him, must forget all
   that is yours, withdraw from all created things, and hide yourself in the
   secret retreat of the spirit, shutting the door upon yourself ” that is,
   denying your will in all things ” and praying to your Father in secret. [28]
   Then you, being hidden with Him, will be conscious of His presence in
   secret, and will love Him, possess Him in secret, and delight in Him in
   secret, in a way that no tongue or language can express.

   12. Courage, then, O soul most beautiful, you know now that your Beloved,
   Whom you desire, dwells hidden within your breast; strive, therefore, to be
   truly hidden with Him, and then you shall embrace Him, and be conscious of
   His presence with loving affection. Consider also that He bids you, by the
   mouth of Isaiah, to come to His secret hiding-place, saying, Go, . . .
   enter into your chambers, shut your doors upon you; that is, all your
   faculties, so that no created thing shall enter: be hid a little for a
   moment, [29] that is, for the moment of this mortal life; for if now during
   this life which is short, you will with all watchfulness keep your
   heart, [30] as the wise man says, God will most assuredly give you, as He
   has promised by the prophet Isaiah, hidden treasures and mysteries of
   secrets. [31] The substance of these secrets is God Himself, for He is the
   substance of the faith, and the object of it, and the faith is the secret
   and the mystery. And when that which the faith conceals shall be revealed
   and made manifest, that is the perfection of God, as St. Paul says, When
   that which is perfect is come, [32] then shall be revealed to the soul the
   substance and mysteries of these secrets.

   13. Though in this mortal life the soul will never reach to the interior
   secrets as it will in the next, however much it may hide itself, still, if
   it will hide itself with Moses, in the hole of the rock ” which is a real
   imitation of the perfect life of the Bridegroom, the Son of God ” protected
   by the right hand of God, it will merit the vision of the back parts; [33]
   that is, it will reach to such perfection here, as to be united, and
   transformed by love, in the Son of God, its Bridegroom. So effectually will
   this be wrought that the soul will feel itself so united to Him, so learned
   and so instructed in His secrets, that, so far as the knowledge of Him in
   this life is concerned, it will be no longer necessary for it to say: Where
   have You hidden Yourself?

   14. You know then, O soul, how you are to demean yourself if you will find
   the Bridegroom in His secret place. But if you will hear it again, hear this
   one word full of substance and unapproachable truth: Seek Him in faith and
   love, without seeking to satisfy yourself in anything, or to understand more
   than is expedient for you to know; for faith and love are the two guides of
   the blind; they will lead you, by a way you know not, to the secret chamber
   of God. Faith, the secret of which I am speaking, is the foot that journeys
   onwards to God, and love is the guide that directs its steps. And while the
   soul meditates on the mysterious secrets of the faith, it will merit the
   revelation, on the part of love, of that which the faith involves, namely,
   the Bridegroom Whom it longs for, in this life by spiritual grace, and the
   divine union, as we said before, [34] and in the next in essential glory,
   face to face, hidden now.

   15. But meanwhile, though the soul attains to union, the highest state
   possible in this life, yet inasmuch as He is still hidden from it in the
   bosom of the Father, as I have said, the soul longing for the fruition of
   Him in the life to come, ever cries, Where have You hidden Yourself?

   16. You do well, then, O soul, in seeking Him always in His secret place;
   for you greatly magnify God, and draw near to Him, esteeming Him as far
   beyond and above all you can reach. Rest, therefore, neither wholly nor in
   part, on what your faculties can embrace; never seek to satisfy yourself
   with what you comprehend of God, but rather with what you comprehend not;
   and never rest on the love of, and delight in, that which you can understand
   and feel, but rather on that which is beyond your understanding and feeling:
   this is, as I have said, to seek Him by faith.

   17. God is, as I said before, [35] inaccessible and hidden, and though it
   may seem that you have found Him, felt Him, and comprehended Him, yet you
   must ever regard Him as hidden, serve Him as hidden, in secret. Do not be
   like many unwise, who, with low views of God, think that when they cannot
   comprehend Him, or be conscious of His presence, that He is then farther
   away and more hidden, when the contrary is true, namely, that He is nearer
   to them when they are least aware of it; as the prophet David says, He put
   darkness His covert, [36] Thus, when you are near to Him, the very
   infirmity of your vision makes the darkness palpable; you do well,
   therefore, at all times, in prosperity as well as in adversity, spiritual or
   temporal, to look upon God as hidden, and to say to Him, Where have You
   hidden Yourself?


   And left me to my sorrow, O my Beloved?

   18. The soul calls Him my Beloved, the more to move Him to listen to its
   cry, for God, when loved, most readily listens to the prayer of him who
   loves Him. Thus He speaks Himself: If you abide in Me . . . you shall ask
   whatever thing you will, and it shall be done to you. [37] The soul may
   then with truth call Him Beloved, when it is wholly His, when the heart has
   no attachments but Him, and when all the thoughts are continually directed
   to Him. It was the absence of this that made Delilah say to Samson, How do
   you say you love me when your mind is not with me? [38] The mind comprises
   the thoughts and the feelings. Some there are who call the Bridegroom their
   Beloved, but He is not really beloved, because their heart is not wholly
   with Him. Their prayers are, therefore, not so effectual before God, and
   they shall not obtain their petitions until, persevering in prayer, they fix
   their minds more constantly upon God and their hearts more wholly in loving
   affection upon Him, for nothing can be obtained from God but by love.

   19. The words, And left me to my sorrow, tell us that the absence of the
   Beloved is the cause of continual sadness in him who loves; for as such a
   one loves none else, so, in the absence of the object beloved, nothing can
   console or relieve him. This is, therefore, a test to discern the true lover
   of God. Is he satisfied with anything less than God? Do I say satisfied?
   Yes, if a man possess all things, he cannot be satisfied; the greater his
   possessions the less will be his satisfaction, for the satisfaction of the
   heart is not found in possessions, but in detachment from all things and in
   poverty of spirit. This being so, the perfection of love in which we possess
   God, by a grace most intimate and special, lives in the soul in this life
   when it has reached it, with a certain satisfaction, which however is not
   full, for David, notwithstanding all his perfection, hoped for that in
   heaven saying, I shall be satisfied when Your glory shall appear. [39]

   20. Thus, then, the peace and tranquillity and satisfaction of heart to
   which the soul may attain in this life are not sufficient to relieve it from
   its groaning, peaceful and painless though it be, while it hopes for that
   which is still wanting. Groaning belongs to hope, as the Apostle says of
   himself and others, though perfect, Ourselves also, who have the first
   fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for
   the adoption of the sons of God. [40] The soul groans when the heart is
   enamored, for where love wounds there is heard the groaning of the wounded
   one, complaining feelingly of the absence of the Beloved, especially when,
   after tasting of the sweet conversation of the Bridegroom, it finds itself
   suddenly alone, and in aridity, because He has gone away. That is why it
   cries,


   You have fled like the hart.

   21. Here it is to be observed that in the Canticle of Canticles the bride
   compares the Bridegroom to the roe and the hart on the mountains ” My
   Beloved is like a roe and to a fawn of harts [41] ” not only because He is
   shy, solitary, and avoids companions as the hart, but also for his sudden
   appearance and disappearance. That is His way in His visits to devout souls
   in order to comfort and encourage them, and in the withdrawing and absence
   which He makes them feel after those visits in order to try, humble, and
   teach them. For that purpose He makes them feel the pain of His absence most
   keenly, as the following words show:


   Having wounded me.

   22. It is as if it had said, It was not enough that I should feel the pain
   and grief which Your absence causes, and from which I am continually
   suffering, but You must, after wounding me with the arrow of Your love, and
   increasing my longing and desire to see You, run away from me with the
   swiftness of the hart, and not permit me to lay hold of You, even for a
   moment.

   23. For the clearer understanding of this we are to keep in mind that,
   beside the many kinds of Gods visits to the soul, in which He wounds it
   with love, there are commonly certain secret touches of love, which, like a
   fiery arrow, pierce and penetrate the soul, and burn it with the fire of
   love. These are properly called the wounds of love, and it is of these the
   soul is here speaking. These wounds so inflame the will, that the soul
   becomes so enveloped with the fire of love as to appear consumed thereby.
   They make it go forth out of itself, and be renewed, and enter on another
   life, as the phoenix from the fire.

   24. David, speaking of this, says, My heart has been inflamed, and my reins
   have been changed; and I am brought to nothing, and I knew not. [42] The
   desires and affections, called the reins by the prophet, are all stirred and
   divinely changed in this burning of the heart, and the soul, through love,
   melted into nothing, knowing nothing but love. At this time the changing of
   the reins is a great pain, and longing for the vision of God; it seems to
   the soul that God treats it with intolerable severity, so much so that the
   severity with which love treats it seems to the soul unendurable, not
   because it is wounded ” for it considers such wounds to be its salvation ”
   but because it is thus suffering from its love, and because He has not
   wounded it more deeply so as to cause death, that it may be united to Him in
   the life of perfect love. The soul, therefore, magnifying its sorrows, or
   revealing them, says,


   Having wounded me.

   25. The soul says in effect, You have abandoned me after wounding me, and
   You have left me dying of love; and then You have hidden Yourself as a hart
   swiftly running away. This impression is most profound in the soul; for by
   the wound of love, made in the soul by God, the affections of the will lead
   most rapidly to the possession of the Beloved, whose touch it felt, and as
   rapidly also, His absence, and its inability to have the fruition of Him
   here as it desires. Thereupon succeed the groaning because of His absence;
   for these visitations of God are not like those which recreate and satisfy
   the soul, because they are rather for wounding than for healing ” more for
   afflicting than for satisfying it, seeing that they tend rather to quicken
   the knowledge, and increase the longing, and consequently pain with the
   longing for the vision of God. They are called the spiritual wounds of love,
   most sweet to the soul and desirable; and, therefore, when it is thus
   wounded the soul would willingly die a thousand deaths, because these wounds
   make it go forth out of itself, and enter into God, which is the meaning of
   the words that follow:


   I ran after You, crying; but You were gone.

   26. There can be no remedy for the wounds of love but from Him who inflicted
   them. And so the wounded soul, urged by the vehemence of that burning which
   the wounds of love occasion, runs after the Beloved, crying to Him for
   relief. This spiritual running after God has a two-fold meaning. The first
   is a going forth from all created things, which is effected by hating and
   despising them; the second, a going forth out of oneself, by forgetting
   self, which is brought about by the love of God. For when the love of God
   touches the soul with that vividness of which we are here speaking, it so
   elevates it, that it goes forth not only out of itself by
   self-forgetfulness, but it is also drawn away from its own judgment, natural
   ways and inclinations, crying after God, O my Bridegroom, as if saying,
   By this touch of Yours and wound of love have You drawn me away not only
   from all created things, but also from myself ” for, in truth, soul and body
   seem now to part ” and raised me up to Yourself, crying after You in
   detachment from all things that I might be attached to You:


   You were gone.

   27. As if saying, When I sought Your presence, I found You not; and I was
   detached from all things without being able to cling to You ” borne
   painfully by the gales of love without help in You or in myself. This going
   forth of the soul in search of the Beloved is the rising of the bride in the
   Canticle: I will rise and go about the city; in the streets and the high
   ways I will seek Him Whom my soul loves. I have sought Him and have not
   found . . . they wounded me. [43] The rising of the bride ” speaking
   spiritually ” is from that which is mean to that which is noble; and is the
   same with the going forth of the soul out of its own ways and inferior love
   to the ennobling love of God. The bride says that she was wounded because
   she found him not; [44] so the soul also says of itself that it is wounded
   with love and forsaken; that is, the loving soul is ever in pain during the
   absence of the Beloved, because it has given itself up wholly to Him hoping
   for the reward of its self-surrender, the Possession of the Beloved. Still
   the Beloved withholds Himself while the soul has lost all things, and even
   itself, for Him; it obtains no compensation for its loss, seeing that it is
   deprived of Him whom it loves.

   28. This pain and sense of the absence of God is wont to be so oppressive in
   those who are going onwards to the state of perfection, that they would die
   if God did not interpose when the divine wounds are inflicted upon them. As
   they have the palate of the will wholesome, and the mind pure and disposed
   for God, and as they taste in some degree of the sweetness of divine love,
   which they supremely desire, so they also suffer supremely; for, having but
   a glimpse of an infinite good which they are not permitted to enjoy, that is
   to them an ineffable pain and torment.
     _________________________________________________________________

   [18] John 1:18

   [19] Isa. 45:15

   [20] Job 9:11

   [21] Eccles. 9:1

   [22] Cant. 1:6

   [23] ˜Soliloq., c. 31. Opp. Ed. Ben. tom. vi. app. p. 98.

   [24] Luke 17:21

   [25] 2 Cor. 6:16

   [26] ˜Mt. Carmel, Bk. 2, c. 5. sect. 3.

   [27] Matt. 13:44

   [28] Matt. 6:6

   [29] Isa. 26:20

   [30] Prov. 4:23

   [31] Isa. 45:3

   [32] 1 Cor. 13:10

   [33] Exod. 33:22, 23

   [34] Sect. 4.

   [35] Sect. 2.

   [36] Ps. 17:12

   [37] John 15:7

   [38] Judg. 16:15

   [39] Ps. 16:15

   [40] Rom. 8:23

   [41] Cant. 2:9

   [42] Ps. 72:21, 22

   [43] Cant. 3:2, 5:7

   [44] Cant. 5:6, 7
     _________________________________________________________________

STANZA II


   O shepherds, you who go

   Through the sheepcots up the hill,

   If you shall see

   Him Whom I love,

   Tell Him I languish, suffer, and die.

   THE soul would now employ intercessors and mediators between itself and the
   Beloved, praying them to make its sufferings and afflictions known. One in
   love, when he cannot converse personally with the object of his love, will
   do so in the best way he can. Thus the soul employs its affections, desires,
   and groanings as messengers well able to manifest the secret of its heart to
   the Beloved. Accordingly, it calls upon them to do this, saying:


   O shepherds, you who go.

   2. The shepherds are the affections, and desires, and groanings of the soul,
   for they feed it with spiritual good things. A shepherd is one who feeds:
   and by means of such God communicates Himself to the soul and feeds it in
   the divine pastures; for without these groans and desires He communicates
   but slightly with it.


   You who go.

   You who go forth in pure love; for all desires and affections do not reach
   God, but only those which proceed from sincere love.


   Through the sheepcots up the hill.

   3. The sheepcots are the heavenly hierarchies, the angelic choirs, by whose
   ministry, from choir to choir, our prayers and sighs ascend to God; that is,
   to the hill, for He is the highest eminence, and because in Him, as on a
   hill, we observe and behold all things, the higher and the lower
   sheepcots. To Him our prayers ascend, offered by angels, as I have said; so
   the angel said to Tobit When you prayed with tears, and buried the dead
   . . . I offered your prayer to the Lord. [45]

   4. The shepherds also are the angels themselves, who not only carry our
   petitions to God, but also bring down the graces of God to our souls,
   feeding them like good shepherds, with the sweet communications and
   inspirations of God, Who employs them in that ministry. They also protect us
   and defend us against the wolves, which are the evil spirits. And thus,
   whether we understand the affections or the angels by the shepherds, the
   soul calls upon both to be its messengers to the Beloved, and thus addresses
   them all:


   If you shall see Him,

   That is to say:

   5. If, to my great happiness you shall come into His presence, so that He
   shall see you and hear your words. God, indeed, knows all things, even the
   very thoughts of the soul, as He said to Moses, [46] but it is then He
   beholds our necessities when He relieves them, and hears our prayers when he
   grants them. God does not see all necessities and hear all petitions until
   the time appointed shall have come; it is then that He is said to hear and
   see, as we learn in the book of Exodus. When the children of Israel had been
   afflicted for four hundred years as serfs in Egypt, God said to Moses, I
   have seen the affliction of my people in Egypt, and I have heard their cry,
   and . . . I am come down to deliver them. [47] And yet He had seen it
   always. So also St. Gabriel bade Zachariah not to fear, because God had
   heard his prayer, and would grant him the son, for whom he had been praying
   for many years; [48] yet God had always heard him. Every soul ought to
   consider that God, though He does not at once help us and grant our
   petitions, will still succor us in His own time, for He is, as David says,
   a helper in due time in tribulation, [49] if we do not become
   faint-hearted and cease to pray. This is what the soul means by saying, If
   you shall see Him; that is to say, if the time is come when it shall be His
   good pleasure to grant my petitions.

   6. Whom I love the most: that is, whom I love more than all creatures.
   This is true of the soul when nothing can make it afraid to do and suffer
   all things in His service. And when the soul can also truly say that which
   follows, it is a sign that it loves Him above all things:


   Tell Him I languish, suffer, and die.

   7. Here the soul speaks of three things that distress it: namely, languor,
   suffering, and death; for the soul that truly loves God with a love in some
   degree perfect, suffers in three ways in His absence, in its three powers
   ordinarily ” the understanding, the will, and the memory. In the
   understanding it languishes because it does not see God, Who is the
   salvation of it, as the Psalmist says: I am your salvation. [50] In the
   will it suffers, because it possesses not God, Who is its comfort and
   delight, as David also says: You shall make them drink of the torrent of
   Your pleasure. [51] In the memory it dies, because it remembers its
   privation of all the blessings of the understanding, which are the vision of
   God, and of the delights of the will, which are the fruition of Him, and
   that it is very possible also that it may lose Him for ever, because of the
   dangers and chances of this life. In the memory, therefore, the soul labors
   under a sensation like that of death, because it sees itself without the
   certain and perfect fruition of God, Who is the life of the soul, as Moses
   says: He is your life. [52]

   8. Jeremiah also, in the Lamentations, speaks of these three things, praying
   to God, and saying: Remember my poverty . . . the wormwood and the gall.
   [53] Poverty relates to the understanding, to which appertain the riches of
   the knowledge of the Son of God, in whom all the treasures of wisdom and
   knowledge are hid. [54] The wormwood, which is a most bitter herb, relates
   to the will, to which appertains the sweetness of the fruition of God,
   deprived of which it abides in bitterness. We learn in the Revelation that
   bitterness appertains spiritually to the will, for the angel said to St.
   John: Take the book and eat it up; and it shall make your belly bitter.
   [55] Here the belly signifies the will. The gall relates not only to the
   memory, but also to all the powers and faculties of the soul, for it
   signifies the death thereof, as we learn from Moses speaking of the damned:
   Their wine is the gall of dragons, and the venom of asps, which is
   incurable. [56] This signifies the loss of God, which is the death of the
   soul.

   9. These three things which distress the soul are grounded on the three
   theological virtues ” faith, charity, and hope, which relate, in the order
   here assigned them, to the three faculties of the soul ” understanding,
   will, and memory. Observe here that the soul does no more than represent its
   miseries and pain to the Beloved: for he who loves wisely does not care to
   ask for that which he wants and desires, being satisfied with hinting at his
   necessities, so that the beloved one may do what shall to him seem good.
   Thus the Blessed Virgin at the marriage feast of Cana asked not directly for
   wine, but only said to her Beloved Son, They have no wine. [57] The
   sisters of Lazarus sent to Him, not to ask Him to heal their brother, but
   only to say that he whom He loved was sick: Lord, behold, he whom You love
   is sick. [58]

   10. There are three reasons for this. Our Lord knows what is expedient for
   us better than we do ourselves. Secondly, the Beloved is more compassionate
   towards us when He sees our necessities and our resignation. Thirdly, we are
   more secured against self-love and self-seeking when we represent our
   necessity, than when we ask for that which we think we need. It is in this
   way that the soul represents its three necessities; as if it said: Tell my
   Beloved, that as I languish, and as He only is my salvation, to save me;
   that as I am suffering, and as He only is my joy, to give me joy; that as I
   am dying, and as He only is my life, to give me life.
     _________________________________________________________________

   [45] Tob. 12:12

   [46] Deut. 31:21

   [47] Exod. 3:7, 8

   [48] Luke 1:13

   [49] Ps. 9:10

   [50] Ps. 34:3

   [51] Ps. 35:9

   [52] Deut. 30:20

   [53] Lam. 3:19

   [54] Col. 2:3

   [55] Rev. 10:9

   [56] Deut. 32:33

   [57] John 2:3

   [58] John 11:3
     _________________________________________________________________

STANZA III


   In search of my Love

   I will go over mountains and strands;

   I will gather no flowers,

   I will fear no wild beasts;

   And pass by the mighty and the frontiers.

   THE soul, observing that its sighs and prayers suffice not to find the
   Beloved, and that it has not been helped by the messengers it invoked in the
   first and second stanzas, will not, because its searching is real and its
   love great, leave undone anything itself can do. The soul that really loves
   God is not dilatory in its efforts to find the Son of God, its Beloved; and,
   even when it has done all it could it is still not satisfied, thinking it
   has done nothing. Accordingly, the soul is now, in this third stanza,
   actively seeking the Beloved, and saying how He is to be found; namely, in
   the practice of all virtue and in the spiritual exercises of the active and
   contemplative life; for this end it rejects all delights and all comforts;
   and all the power and wiles of its three enemies, the world, the devil, and
   the flesh, are unable to delay it or hinder it on the road.


   In search of my Love.

   2. Here the soul makes it known that to find God it is not enough to pray
   with the heart and the tongue, or to have recourse to the help of others; we
   must also work ourselves, according to our power. God values one effort of
   our own more than many of others on our behalf; the soul, therefore,
   remembering the saying of the Beloved, Seek and you shall find, [59] is
   resolved on going forth, as I said just now, to seek Him actively, and not
   rest till it finds Him, as many do who will not that God should cost them
   anything but words, and even those carelessly uttered, and for His sake will
   do nothing that will cost them anything. Some, too, will not leave for His
   sake a place which is to their taste and liking, expecting to receive all
   the sweetness of God in their mouth and in their heart without moving a
   step, without mortifying themselves by the abandonment of a single pleasure
   or useless comfort.

   3. But until they go forth out of themselves to seek Him, however loudly
   they may cry they will not find Him; for the bride in the Canticle sought
   Him in this way, but she found Him not until she went out to seek Him: In
   my little bed in the nights I have sought Him Whom my soul loves: I have
   sought Him and have not found Him. I will rise and will go about the city:
   by the streets and highways I will seek Him Whom my soul loves. [60] She
   afterwards adds that when she had endured certain trials she found Him.
   [61]

   4. He, therefore, who seeks God, consulting his own ease and comfort, seeks
   Him by night, and therefore finds Him not. But he who seeks Him in the
   practice of virtue and of good works, casting aside the comforts of his own
   bed, seeks Him by day; such a one shall find Him, for that which is not seen
   by night is visible by day. The Bridegroom Himself teaches us this, saying,
   Wisdom is clear and never fades away, and is easily seen of them that love
   her, and is found of them that seek her. She prevents them that covet her,
   that she first may show herself to them. He that awakes early to seek her
   shall not labor; for he shall find her sitting at his doors. [62] The soul
   that will go out of the house of its own will, and abandon the bed of its
   own satisfaction, will find the divine Wisdom, the Son of God, the
   Bridegroom waiting at the door without, and so the soul says:


   I will go over mountains and strands.

   5. Mountains, which are lofty, signify virtues, partly on account of their
   height and partly on account of the toil and labor of ascending them; the
   soul says it will ascend to them in the practice of the contemplative life.
   Strands, which are low, signify mortifications, penances, and the spiritual
   exercises, and the soul will add to the active life that of contemplation;
   for both are necessary in seeking after God and in acquiring virtue. The
   soul says, in effect, In searching after my Beloved I will practice great
   virtue, and abase myself by lowly mortifications and acts of humility, for
   the way to seek God is to do good works in Him, and to mortify the evil in
   ourselves, as it is said in the words that follow:


   I will gather no flowers.

   6. He that will seek after God must have his heart detached, resolute, and
   free from all evils, and from all goods which are not simply God; that is
   the meaning of these words. The words that follow describe the liberty and
   courage which the soul must possess in searching after God. Here it declares
   that it will gather no flowers by the way ” the flowers are all the
   delights, satisfactions, and pleasures which this life offers, and which, if
   the soul sought or accepted, would hinder it on the road.

   7. These flowers are of three kinds ” temporal, sensual, and spiritual. All
   of them occupy the heart, and stand in the way of the spiritual detachment
   required in the way of Christ, if we regard them or rest in them. The soul,
   therefore, says, that it will not stop to gather any of them, that it may
   seek after God. It seems to say, I will not set my heart upon riches or the
   goods of this world; I will not indulge in the satisfactions and ease of the
   flesh, neither will I consult the taste and comforts of my spirit, in order
   that nothing may detain me in my search after my Love on the toilsome
   mountains of virtue. This means that it accepts the counsel of the prophet
   David to those who travel on this road: If riches abound, set not your
   heart upon them, [63] This is applicable to sensual satisfactions, as well
   as to temporal goods and spiritual consolations.

   8. From this we learn that not only temporal goods and bodily pleasures
   hinder us on the road to God, but spiritual delight and consolations also,
   if we attach ourselves to them or seek them; for these things are hindrances
   on the way of the cross of Christ, the Bridegroom. He, therefore, that will
   go onwards must not only not stop to gather flowers, but must also have the
   courage and resolution to say as follows:


   I will fear no wild beasts and I will go over the mighty and the
   frontiers.

   Here we have the three enemies of the soul which make war against it, and
   make its way full of difficulties. The wild beasts are the world; the
   mighty, the devil; and the frontiers are the flesh.

   9. The world is the wild beasts, because in the beginning of the heavenly
   journey the imagination pictures the world to the soul as wild beasts,
   threatening and fierce, principally in three ways. The first is, we must
   forfeit the worlds favor, lose friends, credit, reputation, and property;
   the second is not less cruel: we must suffer the perpetual deprivation of
   all the comforts and pleasures of the world; and the third is still worse:
   evil tongues will rise against us, mock us, and speak of us with contempt.
   This strikes some persons so vividly that it becomes most difficult for
   them, I do not say to persevere, but even to enter on this road at all.

   10. But there are generous souls who have to encounter wild beasts of a more
   interior and spiritual nature ” trials, temptations, tribulations, and
   afflictions of diverse kinds, through which they must pass. This is what God
   sends to those whom He is raising upwards to high perfection, proving them
   and trying them as gold in the fire; as David says: Many are the
   tribulations of the just; and out of all these our Lord will deliver
   them. [64] But the truly enamored soul, preferring the Beloved above all
   things, and relying on His love and favor, finds no difficulty in saying:


   I will fear no wild beats and pass over the mighty and the frontiers.

   11. Evil spirits, the second enemy of the soul, are called the mighty,
   because they strive with all their might to seize on the passes of the
   spiritual road; and because the temptations they suggest are harder to
   overcome, and the craft they employ more difficult to detect, than all the
   seductions of the world and the flesh; and because, also, they strengthen
   their own position by the help of the world and the flesh in order to fight
   vigorously against the soul. Hence the Psalmist calls them mighty, saying:
   The mighty have sought after my soul. [65] The prophet Job also speaks of
   their might: There is no power upon the earth that may be compared with him
   who was made to fear no man. [66]

   12. There is no human power that can be compared with the power of the
   devil, and therefore the divine power alone can overcome him, and the divine
   light alone can penetrate his devices. No soul therefore can overcome his
   might without prayer, or detect his illusions without humility and
   mortification. Hence the exhortation of St. Paul to the faithful: Put on
   the armor of God, that you may stand against the deceits of the devil: for
   our wrestling is not against flesh and blood. [67] Blood here is the world,
   and the armor of God is prayer and the cross of Christ, wherein consist the
   humility and mortification of which I have spoken.

   13. The soul says also that it will cross the frontiers: these are the
   natural resistance and rebellion of the flesh against the spirit, for, as
   St. Paul says, the flesh lusts against the spirit, [68] and sets itself as
   a frontier against the soul on its spiritual road. This frontier the soul
   must cross, surmounting difficulties, and trampling underfoot all sensual
   appetites and all natural affections with great courage and resolution of
   spirit: for while they remain in the soul, the spirit will be by them
   hindered from advancing to the true life and spiritual delight. This is set
   clearly before us by St. Paul, saying: If by the spirit you mortify the
   deeds of the flesh, you shall live. [69] This, then, is the process which
   the soul in this stanza says it becomes it to observe on the way to seek the
   Beloved: which briefly is a firm resolution not to stoop to gather flowers
   by the way; courage not to fear the wild beasts, and strength to pass by the
   mighty and the frontiers; intent solely on going over the mountains and the
   strands of the virtues, in the way just explained.
     _________________________________________________________________

   [59] Luke 11:9

   [60] Cant. 3:1

   [61] Cant. 3:4

   [62] Wisd. 6:13

   [63] Ps. 61:11

   [64] Ps. 33:20

   [65] Ps. 53:5

   [66] Job 41:24

   [67] Eph. 6:11

   [68] Gal. 5:17

   [69] Rom. 8:13
     _________________________________________________________________

STANZA IV


   O groves and thickets

   Planted by the hand of the Beloved;

   O verdant meads

   Enameled with flowers,

   Tell me, has He passed by you?

   THE disposition requisite for entering on the spiritual journey, abstinence
   from joys and pleasure, being now described; and the courage also with which
   to overcome temptations and trials, wherein consists the practice of
   self-knowledge, which is the first step of the soul to the knowledge of God.
   Now, in this stanza the soul begins to advance through consideration and
   knowledge of creatures to the knowledge of the Beloved their Creator. For
   the consideration of the creature, after the practice of self-knowledge, is
   the first in order on the spiritual road to the knowledge of God, Whose
   grandeur and magnificence they declare, as the Apostle says: For His
   invisible things from the creation of the world are seen, being understood
   by these things that are made. [70] It is as if he said, The invisible
   things of God are made known to the soul by created things, visible and
   invisible.

   2. The soul, then, in this stanza addresses itself to creatures inquiring
   after the Beloved. And we observe, as St. Augustine [71] says, that the
   inquiry made of creatures is a meditation on the Creator, for which they
   furnish the matter. Thus, in this stanza the soul meditates on the elements
   and the rest of the lower creation; on the heavens, and on the rest of
   created and material things which God has made therein; also on the heavenly
   Spirits, saying:


   O groves and thickets.

   3. The groves are the elements, earth, water, air, and fire. As the most
   pleasant groves are studded with plants and shrubs, so the elements are
   thick with creatures, and here are called thickets because of the number and
   variety of creatures in each. The earth contains innumerable varieties of
   animals and plants, the water of fish, the air of birds, and fire concurs
   with all in animating and sustaining them. Each kind of animal lives in its
   proper element, placed and planted there, as in its own grove and soil where
   it is born and nourished; and, in truth, God so ordered it when He made
   them; He commanded the earth to bring forth herbs and animals; the waters
   and the sea, fish; and the air He gave as a habitation to birds. The soul,
   therefore, considering that this is the effect of His commandment, cries
   out,


   Planted by the hand of the Beloved.

   4. That which the soul considers now is this: the hand of God the Beloved
   only could have created and nurtured all these varieties and wonderful
   things. The soul says deliberately, by the hand of the Beloved, because
   God does many things by the hands of others, as of angels and men; but the
   work of creation has never been, and never is, the work of any other hand
   than His own. Thus the soul, considering the creation, is profoundly stirred
   up to love God the Beloved for it beholds all things to be the work of His
   hands, and goes on to say:


   O verdant meads.

   5. These are the heavens; for the things which He has created in the heavens
   are of incorruptible freshness, which neither perish nor wither with time,
   where the just are refreshed as in the green pastures. The present
   consideration includes all the varieties of the stars in their beauty, and
   the other works in the heavens.

   6. The Church also applies the term verdure to heavenly things; for while
   praying to God for the departing soul, it addresses it as follows: May
   Christ, the Son of the living God, give you a place in the ever-pleasant
   verdure of His paradise. [72] The soul also says that this verdant mead is


   Enameled with flowers.

   7. The flowers are the angels and the holy souls who adorn and beautify that
   place, as costly and fine enamel on a vase of pure gold.


   Tell me, has He passed by you?

   8. This inquiry is the consideration of the creature just spoken of, and is
   in effect: Tell me, what perfections has He created in you?
     _________________________________________________________________

   [70] Rom. 1:20

   [71] Conf. 10. 6.

   [72] Ordo commendationis animae.
     _________________________________________________________________

STANZA V

    ANSWER OF THE CREATURES


   A thousand graces diffusing

   He passed through the groves in haste,

   And merely regarding them

   As He passed,

   Clothed them with His beauty.

   THIS is the answer of the creatures to the soul which, according to St.
   Augustine, in the same place, is the testimony which they furnish to the
   majesty and perfections of God, for which it asked in its meditation on
   created things. The meaning of this stanza is, in substance, as follows: God
   created all things with great ease and rapidity, and left in them some
   tokens of Himself, not only by creating them out of nothing, but also by
   endowing them with innumerable graces and qualities, making them beautiful
   in admirable order and unceasing mutual dependence. All this He wrought in
   wisdom, by which He created them, which is the Word, His only begotten Son.
   Then the soul says;


   A thousand graces diffusing.

   2. These graces are the innumerable multitude of His creatures. The term
   thousand, which the soul makes use of, denotes not their number, but the
   impossibility of numbering them. They are called grace because of the
   qualities with which He has endowed them. He is said to diffuse them because
   He fills the whole world with them.


   He passed through the groves in haste.

   3. To pass through the groves is to create the elements; here called groves,
   through which He is said to pass, diffusing a thousand graces, because He
   adorned them with creatures which are all beautiful. Moreover, He diffused
   among them a thousand graces, giving the power of generation and
   self-conservation. He is said to pass through, because the creatures are, as
   it were, traces of the passage of God, revealing His majesty, power, and
   wisdom, and His other divine attributes. He is said to pass in haste,
   because the creatures are the least of the works of God: He made them, as it
   were, in passing. His greatest works, wherein He is most visible and at
   rest, are the incarnation of the Word and the mysteries of the Christian
   faith, in comparison with which all His other works were works wrought in
   passing and in haste.


   And thereby regarding them As He passed, Clothed them with His beauty.

   4. The son of God is, in the words of St. Paul, the brightness of His glory
   and the figure of His substance. [73] God saw all things only in the face
   of His Son. This was to give them their natural being, bestowing upon them
   many graces and natural gifts, making them perfect, as it is written in the
   book of Genesis: God saw all the things that He had made: and they were
   very good. [74] To see all things very good was to make them very good in
   the Word, His Son. He not only gave them their being and their natural
   graces when He beheld them, but He also clothed them with beauty in the face
   of His Son, communicating to them a supernatural being when He made man, and
   exalted him to the beauty of God, and, by consequence, all creatures in him,
   because He united Himself to the nature of them all in man. For this cause
   the Son of God Himself said, And I, if I be lifted up from the earth will
   draw all things to Myself. [75] And thus in this exaltation of the
   incarnation of His Son, and the glory of His resurrection according to the
   flesh, the Father not only made all things beautiful in part, but also, we
   may well say, clothed them wholly with beauty and dignity.

   NOTE

   BUT beyond all this ” speaking now of contemplation as it affects the soul
   and makes an impression on it ” in the vivid contemplation and knowledge of
   created things the soul beholds such a multiplicity of graces, powers, and
   beauty with which God has endowed them, that they seem to it to be clothed
   with admirable beauty and supernatural virtue derived from the infinite
   supernatural beauty of the face of God, whose beholding of them clothed the
   heavens and the earth with beauty and joy; as it is written: You open Your
   hand and fill with blessing every living creature. [76] Hence the soul
   wounded with love of that beauty of the Beloved which it traces in created
   things, and anxious to behold that beauty which is the source of this
   visible beauty, sings as in the following stanza:
     _________________________________________________________________

   [73] Heb. 1:3

   [74] Gen. 1:31

   [75] John 12:32

   [76] Ps. 144:16
     _________________________________________________________________

STANZA VI

    THE BRIDE


   Oh! who can heal me?

   Give me perfectly Yourself,

   Send me no more

   A messenger

   Who cannot tell me what I wish.

   AS created things furnish to the soul traces of the Beloved, and exhibit the
   impress of His beauty and magnificence, the love of the soul increases, and
   consequently the pain of His absence: for the greater the souls knowledge
   of God the greater its desire to see Him, and its pain when it cannot; and
   as it sees there is no remedy for this pain except in the presence and
   vision of the Beloved, distrustful of every other remedy, it prays in this
   stanza for the fruition of His presence, saying: Entertain me no more with
   any knowledge or communications or impressions of Your grandeur, for these
   do but increase my longing and the pain of Your absence; Your presence alone
   can satisfy my will and desire. The will cannot be satisfied with anything
   less than the vision of God, and therefore the soul prays that He may be
   pleased to give Himself to it in truth, in perfect love.


   O! who can heal me?

   2. That is, there is nothing in all the delights of the world, nothing in
   the satisfaction of the senses, nothing in the sweet taste of the spirit
   that can heal or content me, and therefore it adds:


   Give me at once Yourself.

   3. No soul that really loves can be satisfied or content short of the
   fruition of God. For everything else, as I have just said, not only does not
   satisfy the soul, but rather increases the hunger and thirst of seeing Him
   as He us. Thus every glimpse of the Beloved, every knowledge and impression
   or communication from Him ” these are the messengers suggestive of Him ”
   increase and quicken the souls desire after Him, as crumbs of food in
   hunger stimulate the appetite. The soul, therefore, mourning over the misery
   of being entertained by matters of so little moment, cries out:


   Give me perfectly Yourself.

   4. Now all our knowledge of God in this life, however great it may be, is
   not a perfectly true knowledge of Him, because it is partial and incomplete;
   but to know Him essentially is true knowledge, and that is it which the soul
   prays for here, not satisfied with any other kind. Hence it says:


   Send me no more a messenger.

   5. That is, grant that I may no longer know You in this imperfect way by the
   messengers of knowledge and impressions, which are so distant from that
   which my soul desires; for these messengers, as You well know, O my
   Bridegroom, do but increase the pain of Your absence. They renew the wound
   which You have inflicted by the knowledge of You which they convey, and they
   seem to delay Your coming. Henceforth send me no more of these inadequate
   communications, for if I have been hitherto satisfied with them, it was
   owing to the slightness of my knowledge and of my love: now that my love has
   become great, I cannot satisfy myself with them; therefore, give me at once
   Yourself.

   6. This, more clearly expressed, is as follows: O Lord my Bridegroom, Who
   gave me Yourself partially before, give me Yourself wholly now. You who
   showed glimpses of Yourself before, show Yourself clearly now. You who
   communicated Yourself hitherto by the instrumentality of messengers ” it was
   as if You mocked me ” give Yourself by Yourself now. Sometimes when You
   visited me You gave me the pearl of Your possession, and, when I began to
   examine it, lo, it was gone, for You had hidden it Yourself: it was like a
   mockery. Give me then Yourself in truth, Your whole self, that I may have
   You wholly to myself wholly, and send me no messengers again.


   Who cannot tell me what I wish.

   7. I wish for You wholly, and Your messengers neither know You wholly, nor
   can they speak of You wholly, for there is nothing in earth or heaven that
   can furnish that knowledge to the soul which it longs for. They cannot tell
   me, therefore, what I wish. Instead, then, of these messengers, be You the
   messenger and the message.
     _________________________________________________________________

STANZA VII


   All they who serve are telling me

   Of Your unnumbered graces;

   And all wound me more and more,

   And something leaves me dying,

   I know not what, of which they are darkly speaking.

   THE soul describes itself in the foregoing stanza as wounded, or sick with
   love of the Bridegroom, because of the knowledge of Him which the irrational
   creation supplies, and in the present, as wounded with love because of the
   other and higher knowledge which it derives from the rational creation,
   nobler than the former; that is, angels and men. This is not all, for the
   soul says also that it is dying of love, because of that marvelous immensity
   not wholly but partially revealed to it through the rational creation. This
   it calls I know not what, because it cannot be described, and because it
   is such that the soul dies of it.

   2. It seems, from this, that there are three kinds of pain in the souls
   love of the Beloved, corresponding to the three kinds of knowledge that can
   be had of Him. The first is called a wound; not deep, but slight, like a
   wound which heals quickly, because it comes from its knowledge of the
   creatures, which are the lowest works of God. This wounding of the soul,
   called also sickness, is thus spoken of by the bride in the Canticle: I
   adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if you find my Beloved, that you tell
   Him that I languish with love. [77] The daughters of Jerusalem are the
   creatures.

   3. The second is called a sore which enters deeper than a wound into the
   soul, and is, therefore, of longer continuance, because it is as a wound
   festering, on account of which the soul feels that it is really dying of
   love. This sore is the effect of the knowledge of the works of God, the
   incarnation of the Word, and the mysteries of the faith. These being the
   greatest works of God, and involving a greater love than those of creation,
   produce a greater effect of love in the soul. If the first kind of pain is
   as a wound, this must be like a festering, continuous sore. Of this speaks
   the Bridegroom, addressing Himself to the bride, saying: You have wounded
   My heart, My sister, My bride; you have wounded My heart with one of your
   eyes, and with one hair of your neck. [78] The eye signifies faith in the
   incarnation of the Bridegroom, and the one hair is the love of the same.

   4. The third kind of pain is like dying; it is as if the whole soul were
   festering because of its wound. It is dying a living death until love,
   having slain it, shall make it live the life of love, transforming it in
   love. This dying of love is affected by a single touch of the knowledge of
   the Divinity; it is the I know not what, of which the creatures, as in the
   stanza is said, are speaking indistinctly. This touch is not continuous nor
   great, ” for then soul and body would part ” but soon over, and thus the
   soul is dying of love, and dying the more when it sees that it cannot die of
   love. [79] This is called impatient love, which is spoken of in the book of
   Genesis, where the Scripture says that Rachels love of children was so
   great that she said to Jacob her husband, Give me children, otherwise I
   shall die. [80] And the prophet Job said, Who will grant that . . . He
   that has begun the same would cut me off. [81]

   5. These two-fold pains of love ” that is, the wound and the dying ” are in
   the stanza said to be merely the rational creation. The wound, when it
   speaks of the unnumbered graces of the Beloved in the mysteries and wisdom
   of God taught by the faith. The dying, when it is said that the rational
   creation speaks indistinctly. This is a sense and knowledge of the Divinity
   sometimes revealed when the soul hears God spoken of. Therefore it says:


   All they who serve.

   6. That is, the rational creation, angels and men; for these alone are they
   who serve God, understanding by that word intelligent service; that is to
   say, all they who serve God. Some serve Him by contemplation and fruition in
   heaven ” these are the angels; others by loving and longing for Him on earth
   ” these are men. And because the soul learns to know God more distinctly
   through the rational creation, whether by considering its superiority over
   the rest of creation, or by what it teaches us of God ” the angels
   interiorly by secret inspirations, and men exteriorly by the truths of
   Scripture ” it says:


   Telling me of Your unnumbered graces.

   7. That is, they speak of the wonders of Your grace and mercy in the
   Incarnation, and in the truths of the faith which they show forth and are
   ever telling more distinctly; for the more they say, the more do they reveal
   Your graces.


   And all wound me more and more.

   8. The more the angels inspire me, the more men teach me, the more do I love
   You; and thus all wound me more and more with love.


   And something leaves me dying, I know not what, of which they are darkly
   speaking.

   9. It is as if it said: But beside the wound which the creatures inflict
   when they tell me of Your unnumbered graces, there is yet something which
   remains to be told, one thing unknown to be uttered, a most clear trace of
   the footsteps of God revealed to the soul, which it should follow, a most
   profound knowledge of God, which is ineffable, and therefore spoken of as
   ˜I know not what. If that which I comprehend inflicts the wound and
   festering sore of love, that which I cannot comprehend but yet feel
   profoundly, kills me.

   10. This happens occasionally to souls advanced, whom God favors in what
   they hear, or see, or understand ” and sometimes without these or other
   means ” with a certain profound knowledge, in which they feel or apprehend
   the greatness and majesty of God. In this state they think so highly of God
   as to see clearly that they know Him not, and in their perception of His
   greatness they recognize that not to comprehend Him is the highest
   comprehension. And thus, one of the greatest favors of God, bestowed
   transiently on the soul in this life, is to enable it to see so distinctly,
   and to feel so profoundly, that it clearly understands it cannot comprehend
   Him at all. These souls are herein, in some degree, like the saints in
   heaven, where they who know Him most perfectly perceive most clearly that He
   is infinitely incomprehensible, for those who have the less clear vision, do
   not perceive so distinctly as the others, how greatly He transcends their
   vision. This is clear to none who have not had experience of it. But the
   experienced soul, comprehending that there is something further of which it
   is profoundly sensible, calls it, I know not what. As that cannot be
   understood, so neither can it be described, though it is felt, as I have
   said. Hence the soul says that the creatures speak indistinctly, because
   they cannot distinctly utter that which they would say: it is the speech of
   infants, who cannot explain distinctly or speak intelligibly that which they
   would convey to others.

   11. The other creatures, also, are in some measure a revelation to the soul
   in this way, but not of an order so high, whenever it is the good pleasure
   of God to manifest to it their spiritual sense and significance; they are
   seemingly on the point of making us understand the perfections of God, and
   cannot compass it; it is as if one were about to explain a matter and the
   explanation is not given; and thus they stammer I know not what. The soul
   continues to complain, and addresses its own life, saying, in the stanza
   that follows:
     _________________________________________________________________

   [77] Cant. 5:8

   [78] Cant. 4:9

   [79] See ˜Living Flame, stanza 3, line 3, sect. 20.

   [80] Gen. 30:1

   [81] Job 6:8, 9
     _________________________________________________________________

STANZA VIII


   But how you persevere, O life!

   Not living where you live;

   The arrows bring death

   Which you receive

   From your conceptions of the Beloved.

   THE soul, perceiving itself to be dying of love, as it has just said, and
   yet not dying so as to have the free enjoyment of its love, complains of the
   continuance of its bodily life, by which the spiritual life is delayed. Here
   the soul addresses itself to the life it is living upon earth, magnifying
   the sorrows of it. The meaning of the stanza therefore is as follows: O
   life of my soul, how can you persevere in this life of the flesh, seeing
   that it is your death and the privation of the true spiritual life in God,
   in Whom you live in substance, love, and desire, more truly than in the
   body? And if this were not reason enough to depart, and free yourself from
   the body of this death, so as to live and enjoy the life of God, how can you
   still remain in a body so frail? Besides, these wounds of love made by the
   Beloved in the revelation of His majesty are by themselves alone sufficient
   to put an end to your life, for they are very deep; and thus all your
   feelings towards Him, and all you know of Him, are so many touches and
   wounds of love that kill,


   But how you persevere, O life! Not living where you live.

   2. We must keep in mind, for the better understanding of this, that the soul
   lives there where it loves, rather than in the body which it animates. The
   soul does not live by the body, but, on the contrary, gives it life, and
   lives by love in that which it loves. For beside this life of love which it
   lives in God Who loves it, the soul has its radical and natural life in God,
   like all created things, according to the saying of St. Paul: In Him we
   live, and move, and are; [82] that is, our life, motion, and being is in
   God. St. John also says that all that was made was life in God: That which
   was made, in Him was life. [83]

   3. When the soul sees that its natural life is in God through the being He
   has given it, and its spiritual life also because of the love it bears Him,
   it breaks forth into lamentations, complaining that so frail a life in a
   mortal body should have the power to hinder it from the fruition of the
   true, real, and delicious life, which it lives in God by nature and by love.
   Earnestly, therefore, does the soul insist upon this: it tells us that it
   suffers between two contradictions ” its natural life in the body, and its
   spiritual life in God; contrary the one to the other, because of their
   mutual repugnance. The soul living this double life is of necessity in great
   pain; for the painful life hinders the delicious, so that the natural life
   is as death, seeing that it deprives the soul of its spiritual life, wherein
   is its whole being and life by nature, and all its operations and feelings
   by love. The soul, therefore, to depict more vividly the hardships of this
   fragile life, says:


   The arrows bring death which you receive.

   4. That is to say: Besides, how can you continue in the body, seeing that
   the touches of love ” these are the arrows ” with which the Beloved pierces
   your heart, are alone sufficient to deprive you of life? These touches of
   love make the soul and heart so fruitful of the knowledge and love of God,
   that they may well be called conceptions of God, as in the words that
   follow:


   From your conceptions of the Beloved.

   5. That is, of the majesty, beauty, wisdom, grace, and power, which you know
   to be His.

   NOTE

   AS the hart wounded with a poisoned arrow cannot be easy and at rest, but
   seeks relief on all sides, plunging into the waters here and again there,
   while the poison spreads notwithstanding all attempts at relief, till it
   reaches the heart, and occasions death; so the soul, pierced by the arrow of
   love, never ceases from seeking to alleviate its pains. Not only does it not
   succeed, but its pains increase, let it think, and say, and do what it may;
   and knowing this, and that there is no other remedy but the resignation of
   itself into the hands of Him Who wounded it, that He may relieve it, and
   effectually slay it through the violence of its love; it turns towards the
   Bridegroom, Who is the cause of all, and says:
     _________________________________________________________________

   [82] Acts 17:28

   [83] John 1:3. The Saint adopts an old punctuation, different from the usual
   one. He reads thus: ˜Omnia per Ipsum facta sunt, et sine Ipso factum est
   nihil: Quod factum est, in Ipso vita erat (˜All things were made by Him,
   and without Him nothing was made: What was made in Him was life).
     _________________________________________________________________

STANZA IX


   Why, after wounding

   This heart, have You not healed it?

   And why, after stealing it,

   Have You thus abandoned it,

   And not carried away the stolen prey?

   HERE the soul returns to the Beloved, still complaining of its pain; for
   that impatient love which the soul now exhibits admits of no rest or
   cessation from pain; so it sets forth its griefs in all manner of ways until
   it finds relief. The soul seeing itself wounded and lonely, and as no one
   can heal it but the Beloved Who has wounded it, asks why He, having wounded
   its heart with that love which the knowledge of Him brings, does not heal it
   in the vision of His presence; and why He thus abandons the heart which He
   has stolen through the love Which inflames it, after having deprived the
   soul of all power over it. The soul has now no power over its heart ” for he
   who loves has none ” because it is surrendered to the Beloved, and yet He
   has not taken it to Himself in the pure and perfect transformation of love
   in glory.


   Why, after wounding this heart, have You not healed it?

   2. The enamored soul is complaining not because it is wounded, for the
   deeper the wound the greater the joy, but because, being wounded, it is not
   healed by being wounded to death. The wounds of love are so deliciously
   sweet, that if they do not kill, they cannot satisfy the soul. They are so
   sweet that it desires to die of them, and hence it is that it says, Why,
   after wounding this heart, have You not healed it? That is, Why have You
   struck it so sharply as to wound it so deeply, and yet not healed it by
   killing it utterly with love? As You are the cause of its pain in the
   affliction of love, be You also the cause of its health by a death from
   love; so the heart, wounded by the pain of Your absence, shall be healed in
   the delight and glory of Your Sweet presence. Therefore it goes on:


   And why, after stealing it, have You thus abandoned it?

   3. Stealing is nothing else but the act of a robber in dispossessing the
   owner of his goods, and possessing them himself. Here the soul complains to
   the Beloved that He has robbed it of its heart lovingly, and taken it out of
   its power and possession, and then abandoned it, without taking it into His
   own power and possession as the thief does with the goods he steals,
   carrying them away with him. He who is in love is said to have lost his
   heart, or to have it stolen by the object of his love; because it is no
   longer in his own possession, but in the power of the object of his love,
   and so his heart is not his own, but the property of the person he loves.

   4. This consideration will enable the soul to determine whether it loves God
   simply or not. If it loves Him it will have no heart for itself, nor for its
   own pleasure or profit, but for the honor, glory, and pleasure of God;
   because the more the heart is occupied with self, the less is it occupied
   with God. Whether God has really stolen the heart, the soul may ascertain by
   either of these two signs: Is it anxiously seeking after God? and has it no
   pleasure in anything but in Him, as the soul here says? The reason of this
   is that the heart cannot rest in peace without the possession of something;
   and when its affections are once placed, it has neither the possession of
   itself nor of anything else; neither does it perfectly possess what it
   loves. In this state its weariness is in proportion to its loss, until it
   shall enter into possession and be satisfied; for until then the soul is as
   an empty vessel waiting to be filled, as a hungry man eager for food, as a
   sick man sighing for health, and as a man suspended in the air.


   And not carried away the stolen prey?

   5. Why do You not carry away the heart which Your love has stolen, to fill
   it, to heal it, and to satiate it giving it perfect rest in Yourself?

   6. The loving soul, for the sake of greater conformity with the Beloved,
   cannot cease to desire the recompense and reward of its love for the sake of
   which it serves the Beloved, otherwise it could not be true love, for the
   recompense of love is nothing else, and the soul seeks nothing else, but
   greater love, until it reaches the perfection of love; for the sole reward
   of love is love, as we learn from the prophet Job, who, speaking of his own
   distress, which is that of the soul now referred to, says: As a servant
   longs for the shade, as the hireling looks for the end of his work; so I
   also have had empty months, and have numbered to myself wearisome nights. If
   I sleep, I say, When shall I arise? and again, I shall look for the evening,
   and shall be filled with sorrows even till darkness. [84]

   7. Thus, then, the soul on fire with the love of God longs for the
   perfection and consummation of its love, that it may be completely
   refreshed. As the servant wearied by the heat of the day longs for the
   cooling shade, and as the hireling looks for the end of his work, so the
   soul for the end of its own. Observe, Job does not say that the hireling
   looks for the end of his labor, but only for the end of his work. He teaches
   us that the soul which loves looks not for the end of its labor, but for the
   end of its work; because its work is to love, and it is the end of this
   work, which is love, that it hopes for, namely, the perfect love of God.
   Until it attains to this, the words of Job will be always true of it ” its
   months will be empty, and its nights wearisome and tedious. It is clear,
   then, that the soul which loves God seeks and looks for no other reward of
   its services than to love God perfectly.

   NOTE

   THE soul, having reached this degree of love, resembles a sick man
   exceedingly wearied, whose appetite is gone, and to whom his food is
   loathsome, and all things annoyance and trouble. Amidst all things that
   present themselves to his thoughts, or feelings, or sight, his only wish and
   desire is health; and everything that does not contribute to it is weariness
   and oppressive. The soul, therefore, in pain because of its love of God, has
   three peculiarities. Under all circumstances, and in all affairs, the
   thought of its health ” that is, the Beloved ” is ever present to it; and
   though it is obliged to attend to them because it cannot help it, its heart
   is ever with Him. The second peculiarity, namely, a loss of pleasure in
   everything, arises from the first. The third also, a consequence of the
   second, is that all things become wearisome, and all affairs full of
   vexation and annoyance.

   2. The reason is that the palate of the will having touched and tasted of
   the food of the love of God, the will instantly, under all circumstances,
   regardless of every other consideration, seeks the fruition of the Beloved.
   It is with the soul now as it was with Mary Magdalene, when in her burning
   love she sought Him in the garden. She, thinking Him to be the gardener,
   spoke to Him without further reflection, saying: If you have taken Him
   hence, tell me where you have laid Him, and I will take Him away. [85] The
   soul is under the influence of a like anxiety to find Him in all things, and
   not finding Him immediately, as it desires ” but rather the very reverse ”
   not only has no pleasure in them, but is even tormented by them, and
   sometimes exceedingly so: for such souls suffer greatly in their intercourse
   with men and in the transactions of the world, because these things hinder
   rather than help them in their search.

   3. The bride in the Canticle shows us that she had these three peculiarities
   when seeking the Bridegroom. I sought Him and found Him not; the keepers
   that go about the city found me, they struck me and wounded me: the keepers
   of the walls took away my cloak. [86] The keepers that go about the city
   are the affairs of this world, which, when they find a soul seeking after
   God, inflict upon it much pain, and grief, and loathing; for the soul not
   only does not find in them what it seeks, but rather a hindrance. They who
   keep the wall of contemplation, that the soul may not enter ” that is, evil
   spirits and worldly affairs ” take away the cloak of peace and the quiet of
   loving contemplation. All this inflicts infinite vexation on the soul
   enamored of God; and while it remains on earth without the vision of God,
   there is no relief, great or small, from these afflictions, and the soul
   therefore continues to complain to the Beloved, saying:
     _________________________________________________________________

   [84] Job 7:2-4

   [85] John 20:15

   [86] Cant. 6:6, 7
     _________________________________________________________________

STANZA X


   Quench my troubles,

   For no one else can soothe them;

   And let my eyes behold You,

   For You are their light,

   And I will keep them for You alone.

   HERE the soul continues to beseech the Beloved to put an end to its
   anxieties and distress ” none other than He can do so ” and that in such a
   way that its eyes may behold Him; for He alone is the light by which they
   see, and there is none other but He on whom it will look.


   Quench my troubles.

   2. The desire of love has this property, that everything said or done which
   does not become that which the will loves, wearies and annoys it, and makes
   it peevish when it sees itself disappointed in its desires. This and its
   weary longing after the vision of God is here called troubles. These
   troubles nothing can remove except the possession of the Beloved; hence the
   soul prays Him to quench them with His presence, to cool their feverishness,
   as the cooling water him who is wearied by the heat. The soul makes use of
   the expression quench, to denote its sufferings from the fire of love.


   For no one else can soothe them.

   3. The soul, in order to move and persuade the Beloved to grant its
   petition, says, As none other but You can satisfy my needs, You quench my
   troubles. Remember here that God is then close at hand, to comfort the soul
   and to satisfy its wants, when it has and seeks no satisfaction or comfort
   out of Him. The soul that finds no pleasure out of God cannot be long
   unvisited by the Beloved.


   And let my eyes behold You.

   4. Let me see You face to face with the eyes of the soul,


   For you are their light.

   5. God is the supernatural light of the soul, without which it abides in
   darkness. And now, in the excess of its affection, it calls Him the light of
   its eyes, as an earthly lover, to express his affection, calls the object of
   his love the light of his eyes. The soul says in effect in the foregoing
   terms, Since my eyes have no other light, either of nature or of love, but
   You, let them behold You, Who in every way are their light. David was
   regretting this light when he said in his trouble, The light of my eyes,
   and the same is not with me; [87] and Tobit, when he said, What manner of
   joy shall be to me who sit in darkness, and see not the light of heaven?
   [88] He was longing for the clear vision of God; for the light of heaven is
   the Son of God; as St. John says in the Revelation: And the city needs not
   sun, nor moon to shine in it; for the glory of God has illuminated it, and
   the Lamb is the lamp thereof. [89]


   And I will keep them for You alone.

   6. The soul seeks to constrain the Bridegroom to let it see the light of its
   eyes, not only because it would be in darkness without it, but also because
   it will not look upon anything but on Him. For as that soul is justly
   deprived of this divine light if it fixes the eyes of the will on any other
   light, proceeding from anything that is not God, for then its vision is
   confined to that object; so also the soul, by a certain fitness, deserves
   the divine light, if it shuts its eyes against all objects whatever, to open
   them only for the vision of God.

   NOTE

   BUT the loving Bridegroom of souls cannot bear to see them suffer long in
   the isolation of which I am speaking, for, as He says by the mouth of
   Zachariah, He that shall touch you, touches the apple of My eye; [90]
   especially when their sufferings, as those of this soul, proceed from their
   love for Him. Therefore does He speak through Isaiah, It shall be before
   they call, I will hear; as they are yet speaking, I will hear. [91] And the
   wise man says that the soul that seeks Him as treasure shall find Him. [92]
   God grants a certain spiritual presence of Himself to the fervent prayers of
   the loving soul which seeks Him more earnestly than treasure, seeing that it
   has abandoned all things, and even itself, for His sake.

   2. In that presence He shows certain profound glimpses of His divinity and
   beauty, whereby He still increases the souls anxious desire to behold Him.
   For as men throw water on the coals of the forge to cause intenser heat, so
   our Lord in His dealings with certain souls, in the intermission of their
   love, makes some revelations of His majesty, to quicken their fervor, and to
   prepare them more and more for those graces which He will give them
   afterwards. Thus the soul, in that obscure presence of God, beholding and
   feeling the supreme good and beauty hidden there, is dying in desire of the
   vision, saying in the stanza that follows:
     _________________________________________________________________

   [87] Ps. 37:11

   [88] Tob. 5:12

   [89] Rev. 21:23

   [90] Zech. 2:8

   [91] Isa. 65:24

   [92] Prov. 2:4, 5
     _________________________________________________________________

STANZA XI


   Reveal Your presence,

   And let the vision and Your beauty kill me.

   Behold the malady

   Of love is incurable

   Except in Your presence and before Your face.

   THE soul, anxious to be possessed by God, Who is so great, Whose love has
   wounded and stolen its heart, and unable to suffer more, beseeches Him
   directly, in this stanza, to reveal His beauty ” that is, the divine Essence
   ” and to slay it in that vision, separating it from the body, in which it
   can neither see nor possess Him as it desires. And further, setting before
   Him the distress and sorrow of heart, in which it continues, suffering it
   because of its love, and unable to find any other remedy than the glorious
   vision of the divine essence, cries out: Reveal Your presence.

   2. To understand this clearly we must remember that there are three ways in
   which God is present in the soul. The first is His presence in essence, not
   in holy souls only, but in wretched and sinful souls as well, and also in
   all created things; for it is by this presence that He gives life and being,
   and were it once withdrawn all things would return to nothing. [93] This
   presence never fails in the soul.

   3. The second is His presence by grace, whereby He dwells in the soul,
   pleased and satisfied with it. This presence is not in all souls; for those
   who fall into mortal sin lose it, and no soul can know in a natural way
   whether it has it or not. The third is His presence by spiritual affection.
   God is wont to show His presence in many devout souls in diverse ways, in
   refreshment, joy, and gladness; yet this, like the others, is all secret,
   for He does not show Himself as He is, because the condition of our mortal
   life does not admit of it. Thus this prayer of the soul may be understood of
   any one of them.


   Reveal Your presence.

   4. Inasmuch as it is certain that God is ever present in the soul, at least
   in the first way, the soul does not say, Be present; but, Reveal and
   manifest Your hidden presence, whether natural, spiritual, or affective, in
   such a way that I may behold You in Your divine essence and beauty. The
   soul prays Him that as He by His essential presence gives it its natural
   being, and perfects it by His presence of grace, so also He would glorify it
   by the manifestation of His glory. But as the soul is now loving God with
   fervent affections, the presence, for the revelation of which it prays the
   Beloved to manifest, is to be understood chiefly of the affective presence
   of the Beloved. Such is the nature of this presence that the soul felt there
   was an infinite being hidden there, out of which God communicated to it
   certain obscure visions of His own divine beauty. Such was the effect of
   these visions that the soul longed and fainted away with the desire of that
   which is hidden in that presence.

   5. This is in harmony with the experience of David, when he said: My soul
   longs and faints for the courts of our Lord. [94] The soul now faints with
   desire of being absorbed in the Sovereign Good which it feels to be present
   and hidden; for though it is hidden, the soul is most profoundly conscious
   of the good and delight which are there. The soul is therefore attracted to
   this good with more violence than matter is to its center, and is unable to
   contain itself, by reason of the force of this attraction, from saying:


   Reveal Your presence.

   6. Moses, on Mount Sinai in the presence of God, saw such glimpses of the
   majesty and beauty of His hidden Divinity, that, unable to endure it, he
   prayed twice for the vision of His glory saying: Whereas You have said: I
   know you by name, and you have found grace in my sight. If, therefore, I
   have found grace in Your sight, show me Your face, that I may know You and
   may find grace before Your eyes; [95] that is, the grace which he longed
   for ” to attain to the perfect love of the glory of God. The answer of our
   Lord was: You can not see My face, for man shall not see Me and live. [96]
   It is as if God had said: Moses, your prayer is difficult to grant; the
   beauty of My face, and the joy in seeing Me is so great, as to be more than
   your soul can bear in a mortal body that is so weak. The soul accordingly,
   conscious of this truth, either because of the answer made to Moses or also
   because of that which I spoke of before, [97] namely, the feeling that there
   is something still in the presence of God here which it could not see in its
   beauty in the life it is now living, because, as I said before, [98] it
   faints when it sees but a glimpse of it. Hence it comes that it anticipates
   the answer that may be given to it, as it was to Moses, and says:


   Let the vision and Your beauty kill me.

   7. That is, Since the vision of You and Your beauty is so full of delight
   that I cannot endure, but must die in the act of beholding them, let the
   vision and Your beauty kill me.

   8. Two visions are said to be fatal to man, because he cannot bear them and
   live. One, that of the basilisk, at the sight of which men are said to die
   at once. The other is the vision of God; but there is a great difference
   between them. The former kills by poison, the other with infinite health and
   bliss. It is, therefore, nothing strange for the soul to desire to die by
   beholding the beauty of God in order to enjoy Him for ever. If the soul had
   but one single glimpse of the majesty and beauty of God, not only would it
   desire to die once in order to see Him for ever, as it desires now, but
   would most joyfully undergo a thousand most bitter deaths to see Him even
   for a moment, and having seen Him would suffer as many deaths again to see
   Him for another moment.

   9. It is necessary to observe for the better explanation of this line, that
   the soul is now speaking conditionally, when it prays that the vision and
   beauty may slay it; it assumes that the vision must be preceded by death,
   for if it were possible before death, the soul would not pray for death,
   because the desire of death is a natural imperfection. The soul, therefore,
   takes it for granted that this corruptible life cannot coexist with the
   incorruptible life of God, and says:


   Let the vision and Your beauty kill me.

   10. St. Paul teaches this doctrine to the Corinthians when he says: We
   would not be spoiled, but overclothed, that that which is mortal may be
   swallowed up of life, [99] That is, we would not be divested of the flesh,
   but invested with glory. But reflecting that he could not live in glory and
   in a mortal body at the same time, he says to the Philippians: having a
   desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ. [100]

   11. Here arises this question, Why did the people of Israel of old dread and
   avoid the vision of God, that they might not die, as it appears they did
   from the words of Manoah to his wife, We shall die because we have seen
   God, [101] when the soul desires to die of that vision? To this question
   two answers may be given.

   12. In those days men could not see God, though dying in the state of grace,
   because Christ had not come. It was therefore more profitable for them to
   live in the flesh, increasing in merit, and enjoying their natural life,
   than to be in Limbo, incapable of meriting, suffering in the darkness and in
   the spiritual absence of God. They therefore considered it a great grace and
   blessing to live long upon earth.

   13. The second answer is founded on considerations drawn from the love of
   God. They in those days, not being so confirmed in love, nor so near to God
   by love, were afraid of the vision: but, now, under the law of grace, when,
   on the death of the body, the soul may behold God, it is more profitable to
   live but a short time, and then to die in order to see Him. And even if the
   vision were withheld, the soul that really loves God will not be afraid to
   die at the sight of Him; for true love accepts with perfect resignation, and
   in the same spirit, and even with joy, whatever comes to it from the hands
   of the Beloved, whether prosperity or adversity ” yes, and even
   chastisements such as He shall be pleased to send, for, as St. John says,
   perfect charity casts out fear. [102]

   14. Thus, then, there is no bitterness in death to the soul that loves, when
   it brings with it all the sweetness and delights of love; there is no
   sadness in the remembrance of it when it opens the door to all joy; nor can
   it be painful and oppressive, when it is the end of all unhappiness and
   sorrow, and the beginning of all good. Yes, the soul looks upon it as a
   friend and its bride, and exults in the recollection of it as the day of
   espousals; it yearns for the day and hour of death more than the kings of
   the earth for principalities and kingdoms.

   15. It was of this kind of death that the wise man said, O death, your
   judgment is good to the needy man. [103] If it is good to the needy man,
   though it does not supply his wants, but on the contrary deprives him even
   of what he has, how much more good will it be to the soul in need of love
   and which is crying for more, when it will not only not rob it of the love
   it has already, but will be the occasion of that fullness of love which it
   yearns for, and is the supply of all its necessities. It is not without
   reason, then, that the soul ventures to say:


   Let the vision and Your beauty kill me.

   16. The soul knows well that in the instant of that vision it will be itself
   absorbed and transformed into that beauty, and be made beautiful like it,
   enriched, and abounding in beauty as that beauty itself. This is why David
   said, Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints, [104]
   but that could not be if they did not become partakers of His glory, for
   there is nothing precious in the eyes of God except that which He is
   Himself, and therefore, the soul, when it loves, fears not death, but rather
   desires it. But the sinner is always afraid to die, because he suspects that
   death will deprive him of all good, and inflict upon him all evil; for in
   the words of David, the death of the wicked is very evil, [105] and
   therefore, as the wise man says, the very thought of it is bitter: O death,
   how bitter is your memory to a man that has peace in his riches! [106] The
   wicked love this life greatly, and the next but little, and are therefore
   afraid of death; but the soul that loves God lives more in the next life
   than in this, because it lives rather where it loves than where it dwells,
   and therefore esteeming but lightly its present bodily life, cries out: Let
   the vision and Your beauty kill me.


   Behold, the malady of love is incurable, except in Your presence and before
   Your face.

   17. The reason why the malady of love admits of no other remedy than the
   presence and countenance of the Beloved is that the malady of love differs
   from every other sickness, and therefore requires a different remedy. In
   other diseases, according to sound philosophy, contraries are cured by
   contraries; but love is not cured but by that which is in harmony with
   itself. The reason is that the health of the soul consists in the love of
   God; and so when that love is not perfect, its health is not perfect, and
   the soul is therefore sick, for sickness is nothing else but a failure of
   health. Thus, that soul which loves not at all is dead; but when it loves a
   little, however little that may be, it is then alive, though exceedingly
   weak and sick because it loves God so little. But the more its love
   increases, the greater will be its health, and when its love is perfect,
   then, too, its health also is perfect. Love is not perfect until the lovers
   become so on an equality as to be mutually transformed into one another;
   then love is wholly perfect.

   18. And because the soul is now conscious of a certain adumbration of love,
   which is the malady of which it here speaks, yearning to be made like to Him
   of whom it is a shadow, that is the Bridegroom, the Word, the Son of God,
   Who, as St. Paul says, is the splendor of His glory, and the figure of His
   substance; [107] and because it is into this figure it desires to be
   transformed by love, cries out, Behold, the malady of love is incurable
   except in Your presence, and in the light of Your Countenance. The love
   that is imperfect is rightly called a malady, because as a sick man is
   enfeebled and cannot work, so the soul that is weak in love is also
   enfeebled and cannot practice heroic virtue.

   19. Another explanation of these words is this: he who feels this malady of
   love ” that is, a failure of it ” has an evidence in himself that he has
   some love, because he ascertains what is deficient in him by that which he
   possesses. But he who is not conscious of this malady has evidence therein
   that he has no love at all, or that he has already attained to perfect love.

   NOTE

   THE soul now conscious of a vehement longing after God, like a stone rushing
   to its center, and like wax which has begun to receive the impression of the
   seal which it cannot perfectly represent, and knowing, moreover, that it is
   like a picture lightly sketched, crying for the artist to finish his work,
   and having its faith so clear as to trace most distinctly certain divine
   glimpses of the majesty of God, knows not what else to do but to turn inward
   to that faith ” as involving and veiling the face and beauty of the Beloved
   ” from which it has received those impressions and pledges of love, and
   which it thus addresses:
     _________________________________________________________________

   [93] See ˜Ascent of Mount Carmel, bk. 2, ch. 5, sect. 3.

   [94] Ps. 83:3

   [95] Exod. 33:12, 13

   [96] Exod. 33:20

   [97] Stan. vii. sect. 10.

   [98] Above, sect. 4.

   [99] 2 Cor. 5:4

   [100] Phil. 1:23

   [101] Judg. 13:22

   [102] 1 John 4:18

   [103] Ecclus. 41:3

   [104] Ps. 115:15

   [105] Ps. 33:22

   [106] Ecclus. 41:1

   [107] Heb. 1:3
     _________________________________________________________________

STANZA XII


   O crystal well!

   O that on Your silvered surface

   You would mirror forth at once

   Those desired eyes

   Which are outlined in my heart.

   THE soul vehemently desiring to be united to the Bridegroom, and seeing that
   there is no help or succor in created things, turns towards the faith, as to
   that which gives it the most vivid vision of the Beloved, and adopts it as
   the means to that end. And, indeed, there is no other way of attaining to
   true union, to the spiritual betrothal of God, according to the words of
   Hosea: I will betrothe you to Me in faith. [108] In this fervent desire it
   cries out in the words of this stanza, which are in effect this: O faith of
   Christ, my Bridegroom! Oh that you would manifest clearly those truths
   concerning the Beloved, secretly and obscurely infused ” for faith is, as
   theologians say, an obscure habit ” so that your informal and obscure
   communications may be in a moment clear; Oh that you would withdraw yourself
   formally and completely from these truths ” for faith is a veil over the
   truths of God ” and reveal them perfectly in glory. Accordingly it says:


   O crystal well!

   2. Faith is called crystal for two reasons: because it is of Christ the
   Bridegroom; because it has the property of crystal, pure in its truths, a
   limpid well clear of error, and of natural forms. It is a well because the
   waters of all spiritual goodness flow from it into the soul. Christ our
   Lord, speaking to the woman of Samaria, calls faith a well, saying, The
   water that I will give him shall become in him a well of water springing up
   into life everlasting. [109] This water is the Spirit which they who
   believe shall receive by faith in Him. Now this He said of the Spirit which
   they who believed in Him should receive. [110]


   Oh that on your silvered surface.

   3. The articles and definitions of the faith are called silvered surfaces.
   In order to understand these words and those that follow, we must know that
   faith is compared to silver because of the propositions it teaches us, the
   truth and substance it involves being compared to gold. This very substance
   which we now believe, hidden behind the silver veil of faith, we shall
   clearly behold and enjoy hereafter; the gold of faith shall be made
   manifest. Hence the Psalmist, speaking of this, says: If you sleep amidst
   the lots, the wings of the dove are laid over with silver, and the hinder
   parts of the back in the paleness of gold. [111] That means if we shall
   keep the eyes of the understanding from regarding the things of heaven and
   of earth ” this the Psalmist calls sleeping in the midst ” we shall be firm
   in the faith, here called dove, the wings of which are the truths laid over
   with silver, because in this life the faith puts these truths before us
   obscurely beneath a veil. This is the reason why the soul calls them
   silvered surface. But when faith shall have been consummated in the clear
   vision of God, then the substance of faith, the silver veil removed, will
   shine as gold.

   4. As the faith gives and communicates to us God Himself, but hidden beneath
   the silver of faith, yet it reveals Him none the less. So if a man gives us
   a vessel made of gold, but covered with silver, he gives us in reality a
   vessel of gold, though the gold is covered over. Thus, when the bride in the
   Canticle was longing for the fruition of God, He promised it to her so far
   as the state of this life admitted of it, saying: We will make you chains
   of gold inlaid with silver. [112] He thus promised to give Himself to her
   under the veil of faith. Hence the soul addresses the faith, saying: Oh
   that on your silvered surface ” the definitions of faith ” in which you
   hide the gold of the divine rays ” which are the desired eyes, ” instantly
   adding:


   You would mirror forth at once those desired eyes!

   5. By the eyes are understood, as I have said, the rays and truths of God,
   which are set before us hidden and informal in the definitions of the faith.
   Thus the words say in substance: Oh that you would formally and explicitly
   reveal to me those hidden truths which You teach implicitly and obscurely in
   the definitions of the faith; according to my earnest desire. Those truths
   are called eyes, because of the special presence of the Beloved, of which
   the soul is conscious, believing Him to be perpetually regarding it; and so
   it says:


   Which are outlined in my heart.

   6. The soul here says that these truths are outlined in the heart ” that is,
   in the understanding and the will. It is through the understanding that
   these truths are infused into the soul by faith. They are said to be
   outlined because the knowledge of them is not perfect. As a sketch is not a
   perfect picture, so the knowledge that comes by faith is not a perfect
   understanding. The truths, therefore, infused into the soul by faith are as
   it were in outline, and when the clear vision shall be granted, then they
   will be as a perfect and finished picture, according to the words of the
   Apostle: When that shall come which is perfect, that shall be made void
   which is in part. [113] That which is perfect is the clear vision, and
   that which is in part is the knowledge that comes by faith.

   7. Besides this outline which comes by faith, there is another by love in
   the soul that loves ” that is, in the will ” in which the face of the
   Beloved is so deeply and vividly pictured, when the union of love occurs,
   that it may be truly said the Beloved lives in the loving soul, and the
   loving soul in the Beloved. Love produces such a resemblance by the
   transformation of those who love that one may be said to be the other, and
   both but one. The reason is, that in the union and transformation of love
   one gives himself up to the other as his possession, and each resigns,
   abandons, and exchanges himself for the other, and both become but one in
   the transformation wrought by love.

   8. This is the meaning of St. Paul when he said, I live, now, not I, but
   Christ lives in me. [114] In that He says, I live, now, not I, his
   meaning is, that though he lived, yet the life he lived was not his own,
   because he was transformed in Christ: that his life was divine rather than
   human; and for that reason, he said it was not he that lived, but Christ Who
   lived in him. We may therefore say, according to this likeness of
   transformation, that his life and the life of Christ were one by the union
   of love. This will be perfect in heaven in the divine life of all those who
   shall merit the beatific vision; for, transformed in God, they will live the
   life of God and not their own, since the life of God will be theirs. Then
   they will say in truth. We live, but not we ourselves, for God lives in
   us.

   9. Now, this may take place in this life, as in the case of St. Paul, but
   not perfectly and completely, though the soul should attain to such a
   transformation of love as shall be spiritual marriage, which is the highest
   state it can reach in this life; because all this is but an outline of love
   compared with the perfect image of transformation in glory. Yet, when this
   outline of transformation is attained in this life, it is a grand blessing,
   because the Beloved is so greatly pleased therewith. He desires, therefore,
   that the bride should have Him thus delineated in her soul, and says to her,
   Put Me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm. [115] The heart
   here signifies the soul, wherein God in this life dwells as an impression of
   the seal of faith, and the arm is the resolute will, where He is as the
   impressed token of love.

   10. Such is the state of the soul at that time. I speak but little of it,
   not willing to leave it altogether untouched, though no language can
   describe it.

   11. The very substance of soul and body seems to be dried up by thirst after
   this living well of God, for the thirst resembles that of David when he
   cried out, As the hart longs for the fountains of waters, so my soul longs
   for You, O God. My soul has thirsted after the strong living God; when shall
   I come and appear before the face of God? [116] So oppressive is this
   thirst to the soul, that it counts it as nothing to break through the camp
   of the Philistines, like the valiant men of David, to fill its pitcher with
   water out of the cisterns of Bethlehem, [117] which is Christ. The trials
   of this world, the rage of the devil, and the pains of hell are nothing to
   pass through, in order to plunge into this fathomless fountain of love.

   12. To this we may apply those words in the Canticle: Love is strong as
   death, jealousy is hard as hell. [118] It is incredible how vehement are
   the longings and sufferings of the soul when it sees itself on the point of
   testing this good, and at the same time sees it withheld; for the nearer the
   object desired, the greater the pangs of its denial: Before I eat, says
   Job, I sigh, and as it were overflowing waters so my roaring [119] and
   hunger for food. God is meant here by food; for in proportion to the souls
   longing for food, and its knowledge of God, is the pain it suffers now.

   NOTE

   THE source of the grievous sufferings of the soul at this time is the
   consciousness of its own emptiness of God ” while it is drawing nearer and
   nearer to Him ” and also, the thick darkness with the spiritual fire, which
   dry and purify it, that, its purification ended, it may be united with God.
   For when God sends not forth a ray of supernatural light into the soul, He
   is to it intolerable darkness when He is even near to it in spirit, for the
   supernatural light by its very brightness obscures the mere natural light.
   David referred to this when he said: Cloud and mist round about Him . . . a
   fire shall go before Him. [120] And again: He put darkness His covert; His
   tabernacle is round about Him, darksome waters in the clouds of the air.
   Because of the brightness in His sight the clouds passed, hail and coals of
   fire. [121] The soul that approaches God feels Him to be all this more and
   more the further it advances, until He shall cause it to enter within His
   divine brightness through the transformation of love. But the comfort and
   consolations of God are, by His infinite goodness, proportional to the
   darkness and emptiness of the soul, as it is written, As the darkness
   thereof, so also the light thereof. [122] And because He humbles souls and
   wearies them, while He is exalting them and making them glorious, He sends
   into the soul, in the midst of its weariness, certain divine rays from
   Himself, in such gloriousness and strength of love as to stir it up from its
   very depths, and to change its whole natural condition. Thus, the soul, in
   great fear and natural awe, addresses the Beloved in the first words of the
   following stanza, the remainder of which is His answer:
     _________________________________________________________________

   [108] Hos. 2:20

   [109] John 4:14

   [110] John 7:39

   [111] Ps. 67:14

   [112] Cant. 1:10

   [113] 1 Cor. 13:10

   [114] Gal. 2:20

   [115] Cant. 8:6

   [116] Ps. 41:1, 2

   [117] 1 Chr. 11:18

   [118] Cant. 8:6

   [119] Job 3:24

   [120] Ps. 96:2, 3

   [121] Ps. 17:12, 13

   [122] Ps. 138:12
     _________________________________________________________________

STANZA XIII


   Turn them away, O my Beloved!

   I am on the Wing.

    THE BRIDEGROOM


   Return, My Dove!

   The wounded hart

   Looms on the hill

   In the air of your flight and is refreshed.

    EXPLANATION

   AMID those fervent affections of love, such as the soul has shown in the
   preceding stanzas, the Beloved is wont to visit His bride, tenderly,
   lovingly, and with great strength of love; for ordinarily the graces and
   visits of God are great in proportion to the greatness of those fervors and
   longings of love which have gone before. And, as the soul has so anxiously
   longed for the divine eyes ” as in the foregoing stanza ” the Beloved
   reveals to it some glimpses of His majesty and Godhead, according to its
   desires. These divine rays strike the soul so profoundly and so vividly that
   it is rapt into an ecstasy which in the beginning is attended with great
   suffering and natural fear. Hence the soul, unable to bear the ecstasies in
   a body so frail, cries out, Turn away your eyes from me.


   Turn them away, O my Beloved!

   2. That is, Your divine eyes, for they make me fly away out of myself to
   the heights of contemplation, and my natural force cannot bear it. This the
   soul says because it thinks it has escaped from the burden of the flesh,
   which was the object of its desires; it therefore prays the Beloved to turn
   away His eyes; that is, not to show them in the body where it cannot bear
   and enjoy them as it would, but to show them to it in its flight from the
   body. The Bridegroom at once denies the request and hinders the flight,
   saying, Return, My Dove! for the communications I make to you now are not
   those of the state of glory wherein you desire to be; but return to Me, for
   I am He Whom you, wounded with love, are seeking, and I, too, as the hart,
   wounded with your love, begin to show Myself to you on the heights of
   contemplation, and am refreshed and delighted by the love which your
   contemplation involves. The soul then says to the Bridegroom:


   Turn them away, O my Beloved!

   3. The soul, because of its intense longing after the divine eyes ” that is,
   the Godhead ” receives interiorly from the Beloved such communications and
   knowledge of God as compel it to cry out, Turn them away, O my Beloved!
   For such is the wretchedness of our mortal nature, that we cannot bear ”
   even when it is offered to us ” but at the cost of our life, that which is
   the very life of the soul, and the object of its earnest desires, namely,
   the knowledge of the Beloved. Thus the soul is compelled to say, with regard
   to the eyes so earnestly, so anxiously sought for, and in so many ways ”
   when they become visible ” Turn them away.

   4. So great, at times, is the suffering of the soul during these ecstatic
   visitations ” and there is no other pain which so wrenches the very bones,
   and which so oppresses our natural forces ” that, were it not for the
   special interference of God, death would ensue. And, in truth, such is it to
   the soul, the subject of these visitations, for it feels as if it were
   released from the body and a stranger to the flesh. Such graces cannot be
   perfectly received in the body, because the spirit of man is lifted up to
   the communion of the Spirit of God, Who visits the soul, and must therefore
   of necessity be in some measure a stranger to the body. Hence it is that the
   flesh has to suffer, and consequently the soul in it, by reason of their
   union in one person. The great agony of the soul, therefore, in these
   visitations, and the great fear that overwhelms it when God deals with it in
   the supernatural way, [123] force it to cry out, Turn them away, O my
   Beloved!

   5. But it is not to be supposed, however, that the soul really wishes Him to
   turn away His eyes; for this is nothing else but the expression of natural
   awe, as I said before. [124] Yes, rather, cost they what they may, the soul
   would not willingly miss these visitations and favors of the Beloved; for
   though nature may suffer, the spirit flies to this supernatural recollection
   in order to enjoy the spirit of the Beloved, the object of its prayers and
   desires. The soul is unwilling to receive these visitations in the body,
   when it cannot have the perfect fruition of them, and only in a slight
   degree and in pain; but it covets them in the flight of the disembodied
   spirit when it can enjoy them freely. Hence it says, Turn them away, my
   Beloved ” that is, Do not visit me in the flesh.


   I am on the wing.

   6. It is as if it said, I am taking my flight out of the body, that You may
   show them when I shall have left it; they being the cause of my flight out
   of the body. For the better understanding of the nature of this flight we
   should consider that which I said just now. [125] In this visitation of the
   divine Spirit the spirit of the soul is with great violence borne upwards
   into communion with the divine, the body is abandoned, all its acts and
   senses are suspended, because they are absorbed in God. Thus the Apostle,
   St. Paul, speaking of his own ecstasy, says, Whether in the body or out of
   the body, I cannot tell. [126] But we are not to suppose that the soul
   abandons the body, and that the natural life is destroyed, but only that its
   actions have then ceased.

   7. This is the reason why the body remains insensible in raptures and
   ecstasies, and unconscious of the most painful inflictions. These are not
   like the swoons and faintings of the natural life, which cease when pain
   begins. They who have not arrived at perfection are liable to these
   visitations, for they happen to those who are walking in the way of
   proficients. They who are already perfect receive these visitations in peace
   and in the sweetness of love: ecstasies cease, for they were only graces to
   prepare them for this greater grace.

   8. This is a fitting place for discussing the difference between raptures,
   ecstasies, other elevations and subtle flights of the spirit, to which
   spiritual persons are liable; but, as I intend to do nothing more than
   explain briefly this canticle, as I undertook in the prologue, I leave the
   subject for those who are better qualified than I am. I do this the more
   readily, because our mother, the blessed Teresa of Jesus, has written
   admirably on this matter, [127] whose writings I hope in God to see
   published soon. The flight of the soul in this place, then, is to be
   understood of ecstasy, and elevation of spirit in God. The Beloved
   immediately says:


   Return, My Dove.

   9. The soul was joyfully quitting the body in its spiritual flight, thinking
   that its natural life was over, and that it was about to enter into the
   everlasting fruition of the Bridegroom, and remain with Him without a veil
   between them. He, however, restrains it in its flight, saying:


   Return, My Dove.

   10. It is as if He said, O My Dove, in your high and rapid flight of
   contemplation, in the love with which you are inflamed, in the simplicity of
   your regard ” these are three characteristics of the dove ” return from
   that flight in which you aim at the true fruition of Myself ” the time is
   not yet come for knowledge so high ” return, and submit yourself to that
   lower degree of it which I communicate in this your rapture.


   The wounded hart.

   11. The Bridegroom likens Himself to a hart, for by the hart here He means
   Himself. The hart by nature climbs up to high places, and when wounded
   hastens to seek relief in the cooling waters. If he hears his consort moan
   and sees that she is wounded, he runs to her at once, comforts, and caresses
   her. So the Bridegroom now; for, seeing the bride wounded with His love, He,
   too, hearing her moaning, is wounded Himself with her love; for with lovers
   the wound of one is the wound of the other, and they have the same feelings
   in common. The Bridegroom, therefore, says in effect: Return, my bride, to
   Me; for as you are wounded with the love of Me, I too, like the hart, am
   wounded by love for you. I am like the hart, looming on the top of the
   hill. Therefore He says:


   Looms on the hill.

   12. That is, on the heights of contemplation, to which you have ascended in
   your flight. Contemplation is a lofty eminence where God, in this life,
   begins to communicate Himself to the soul, and to show Himself, but not
   distinctly. Hence it is said, Looms on the hill, because He does not
   appear clearly. However profound the knowledge of Himself which God may
   grant to the soul in this life, it is, after all, but an indistinct vision.
   We now come to the third property of the hart, the subject of the line that
   follows:


   In the air of your flight, and is refreshed.

   13. The flight is contemplation in the ecstasy spoken of before, [128] and
   the air is the spirit of love produced in the soul by this flight of
   contemplation, and this love produced by the flight is here with great
   propriety called air, for the Holy Spirit also is likened to air in the
   Sacred Writings, because He is the breath of the Father and the Son. And so
   as He is there the air of the flight ” that is, that He proceeds by the will
   from the contemplation and wisdom of the Father and the Son, and is breathed
   ” so here the love of the soul is called air by the Bridegroom, because it
   proceeds from the contemplation of God and the knowledge of Him which at
   this time is possessed by the soul.

   14. We must observe here that the Bridegroom does not say that He comes at
   the flight, but at the air of the flight, because properly speaking God does
   not communicate Himself to the soul because of that flight, which is, as I
   have said, the knowledge it has of God, but because of the love which is the
   fruit of that knowledge. For as love is the union of the Father and the Son,
   so is it also of God and the soul.

   15. Hence it is that notwithstanding the most profound knowledge of God, and
   contemplation itself, together with the knowledge of all mysteries, the soul
   without love is worth nothing, and can do nothing, as the Apostle says,
   towards its union with God. [129] In another place he says, Have charity,
   which is the bond of perfection. [130] This charity then and love of the
   soul make the Bridegroom run to drink of the fountain of the Brides love,
   as the cooling waters attract the thirsty and the wounded hart, to be
   refreshed therein.


   And is refreshed.

   16. As the air cools and refreshes him who is wearied with the heat, so the
   air of love refreshes and comforts him who burns with the fire of love. The
   fire of love has this property, the air which cools and refreshes it is an
   increase of the fire itself. To him who loves, love is a flame that burns
   with the desire of burning more and more, like the flame of material fire.
   The consummation of this desire of burning more and more, with the love of
   the bride, which is the air of her flight, is here called refreshment. The
   Bridegroom says in substance, I burn more and more because of the ardor of
   your flight, for love kindles love.

   17. God does not establish His grace and love in the soul but in proportion
   to the good will of that souls love. He, therefore, that truly loves God
   must strive that his love fail not; for so, if we may thus speak, will he
   move God to show him greater love, and to take greater delight in his soul.
   In order to attain to such a degree of love, he must practice those things
   of which the Apostle speaks, saying: Charity is patient, is benign: charity
   envies not, deals not perversely; is not puffed up, is not ambitious, seeks
   not her own, is not provoked to anger, thinks not evil, rejoices not upon
   iniquity, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all
   things, hopes all things, endures all things. [131]

   NOTE

   WHEN the dove ” that is the soul ” was flying on the gale of love over the
   waters of the deluge of the weariness and longing of its love, not finding
   where her foot might rest, [132] the compassionate father Noah, in this
   last flight, put forth the hand of his mercy, caught her, and brought her
   into the ark of his charity and love. That took place when the Bridegroom,
   as in the stanza now explained, said, Return, My Dove. In the shelter
   within the ark, the soul, finding all it desired, and more than it can ever
   express, begins to sing the praises of the Beloved, celebrating the
   magnificence which it feels and enjoys in that union, saying:
     _________________________________________________________________

   [123] See St. Teresa, ˜Life, ch. 20 sect. 16, or ˜Las Mordadas, 6. ch. 11.

   [124] Sect. 1. above.

   [125] Sect. 4. above.

   [126] 2 Cor. 12:3

   [127] See ˜Relation 8.

   [128] Sect. 1.

   [129] 1 Cor. 13:2

   [130] Col. 3:14

   [131] 1 Cor. 13:4-7

   [132] Gen. 8:9
     _________________________________________________________________

STANZAS XIV, XV

    THE BRIDE


   My Beloved is the mountains,

   The solitary wooded valleys,

   The strange islands,

   The roaring torrents,

   The whisper of the amorous gales;

   The tranquil night

   At the approaches of the dawn,

   The silent music,

   The murmuring solitude,

   The supper which revives, and enkindles love.

   BEFORE I begin to explain these stanzas, I must observe, in order that they
   and those which follow may be better understood, that this spiritual flight
   signifies a certain high estate and union of love, to which, after many
   spiritual exercises, God is wont to elevate the soul: it is called the
   spiritual betrothal of the Word, the Son of God. In the beginning, when this
   occurs the first time, God reveals to it great things of Himself, makes it
   beautiful in majesty and grandeur, adorns it with graces and gifts, and
   endows it with honor, and with the knowledge of Himself, as a bride is
   adorned on the day of her betrothal. On this happy day the soul not only
   ceases from its anxieties and loving complaints, but is, moreover, adorned
   with all grace, entering into a state of peace and delight, and of the
   sweetness of love, as it appears from these stanzas, in which it does
   nothing else but recount and praise the magnificence of the Beloved, which
   it recognizes in Him, and enjoys in the union of the betrothal.

   2. In the stanzas that follow, the soul speaks no more of its anxieties and
   sufferings, as before, but of the sweet and peaceful intercourse of love
   with the Beloved; for now all its troubles are over. These two stanzas,
   which I am about to explain, contain all that God is wont at this time to
   bestow upon the soul; but we are not to suppose that all souls, thus far
   advanced, receive all that is here described, either in the same way or in
   the same degree of knowledge and of consciousness. Some souls receive more,
   others less; some in one way, some in another; and yet all may be in the
   state of spiritual betrothal. But in this stanza the highest possible is
   spoken of, because that embraces all.

   EXPLANATION

   3. As in the ark of Noah there were many chambers for the different kinds of
   animals, as the Sacred Writings tell us, and all food that may be eaten,
   [133] so the soul, in its flight to the divine ark of the bosom of God, sees
   therein not only the many mansions of which our Lord speaks, but also all
   the food, that is, all the magnificence in which the soul may rejoice, and
   which are here referred to by the common terms of these stanzas. These are
   substantially as follows:

   4. In this divine union the soul has a vision and foretaste of abundant and
   inestimable riches, and finds there all the repose and refreshment it
   desired; it attains to the secrets of God, and to a strange knowledge of
   Him, which is the food of those who know Him most; it is conscious of the
   awful power of God beyond all other power and might, tastes of the wonderful
   sweetness and delight of the Spirit, finds its true rest and divine light,
   drinks deeply of the wisdom of God, which shines forth in the harmony of the
   creatures and works of God; it feels itself filled with all good, emptied,
   and delivered from all evil, and, above all, rejoices consciously in the
   inestimable banquet of love which confirms it in love. This is the substance
   of these two stanzas.

   5. The bride here says that her Beloved in Himself and to her is all the
   objects she enumerates; for in the ecstatic communications of God the soul
   feels and understands the truth of the saying of St. Francis: God is mine
   and all things are mine. And because God is all, and the soul, and the good
   of all, the communication in this ecstasy is explained by the consideration
   that the goodness of the creatures referred to in these stanzas is a
   reflection of His goodness, as will appear from every line thereof. All that
   is here set forth is in God eminently in an infinite way, or rather, every
   one of these grandeurs is God, and all of them together are God. Inasmuch as
   the soul is one with God, it feels all things to be God according to the
   words of St. John: What was made, in Him was life. [134]

   6. But we are not to understand this consciousness of the soul as if it saw
   the creatures in God as we see material objects in the light, but that it
   feels all things to be God in this fruition of Him; neither are we to
   imagine that the soul sees God essentially and clearly because it has so
   deep a sense of Him; for this is only a strong and abundant communication
   from Him, a glimmering light of what He is in Himself, by which the soul
   discerns this goodness of all things, as I proceed to explain.


   My Beloved is the mountains.

   7. Mountains are high fertile, extensive, beautiful, lovely, flowery, and
   odorous. These mountains my Beloved is to me.


   The solitary wooded valleys.

   8. Solitary valleys are tranquil, pleasant, cooling, shady, abounding in
   sweet waters, and by the variety of trees growing in them, and by the melody
   of the birds that frequent them, enliven and delight the senses; their
   solitude and silence procure us a refreshing rest. These valleys my Beloved
   is to me.


   The strange islands.

   9. Strange islands are girt by the sea; they are also, because of the sea,
   distant and unknown to the commerce of men. They produce things very
   different from those with which we are conversant, in strange ways, and with
   qualities hitherto unknown, so as to surprise those who behold them, and
   fill them with wonder. Thus, then, by reason of the great and marvelous
   wonders, and the strange things that come to our knowledge, far beyond the
   common notions of men, which the soul beholds in God, it calls Him the
   strange islands. We say of a man that he is strange for one of two reasons:
   either because he withdraws himself from the society of his fellows, or
   because he is singular or distinguished in his life and conduct. For these
   two reasons together God is called strange by the soul. He is not only all
   that is strange in undiscovered islands, but His ways, judgments, and works
   are also strange, new, and marvelous to men.

   10. It is nothing wonderful that God should be strange to men who have never
   seen Him, seeing that He is also strange to the holy angels and the souls
   who see Him; for they neither can nor shall ever see Him perfectly. Yes,
   even to the day of the last judgment they will see in Him so much that is
   new in His deep judgments, in His acts of mercy and justice, as to excite
   their wonder more and more. Thus God is the strange islands not to men only,
   but to the angels also; only to Himself is He neither strange nor new.


   The roaring torrents.

   11. Torrents have three properties. 1. They overflow all that is in their
   course. 2. They fill all hollows. 3. They overpower all other sounds by
   their own. And hence the soul, feeling most sweetly that these three
   properties belong to God, says, My Beloved is the roaring torrents.

   12. As to the first property of which the soul is conscious, it feels itself
   to be so overwhelmed with the torrent of the Spirit of God, and so violently
   overpowered by it, that all the waters in the world seem to it to have
   surrounded it, and to have drowned all its former actions and passions.
   Though all this is violent, yet there is nothing painful in it, for these
   rivers are rivers of peace, as it is written, God, speaking through Isaiah,
   saying, I will decline upon her, as it were, a flood of peace, and as a
   torrent overflowing glory. [135] That is, I will bring upon the soul, as
   it were, a river of peace, and a torrent overflowing with glory. Thus this
   divine overflowing, like roaring torrents, fills the soul with peace and
   glory. The second property the soul feels is that this divine water is now
   filling the vessels of its humility and the emptiness of its desires, as it
   is written: He has exalted the humble, and filled the hungry with good.
   [136] The third property of which the soul is now conscious in the roaring
   torrents of the Beloved is a spiritual sound and voice overpowering all
   other sounds and voices in the world. The explanation of this will take a
   little time.

   13. This voice, or this murmuring sound of the waters, is an overflowing so
   abundant as to fill the soul with good, and a power so mighty seizing upon
   it as to seem not only the sound of many waters, but a most loud roaring of
   thunder. But the voice is a spiritual voice, unattended by material sounds
   or the pain and torment of them, but rather with majesty, power, might,
   delight, and glory: it is, as it were, a voice, an infinite interior sound
   which endows the soul with power and might. The Apostles heard in spirit
   this voice when the Holy Spirit descended upon them in the sound as of a
   mighty wind, [137] as we read in the Acts of the Apostles. In order to
   manifest this spiritual voice, interiorly spoken, the sound was heard
   exteriorly, as of a rushing wind, by all those who were in Jerusalem. This
   exterior manifestation reveals what the Apostles interiorly received,
   namely, fullness of power and might.

   14. So also when our Lord Jesus prayed to the Father because of His distress
   and the rage of His enemies, He heard an interior voice from heaven,
   comforting Him in His Sacred Humanity. The sound, solemn and grave, was
   heard exteriorly by the Jews, some of whom said that it thundered: others
   said, An angel has spoken to Him. [138] The voice outwardly heard was the
   outward sign and expression of that strength and power which Christ then
   inwardly received in His human nature. We are not to suppose that the soul
   does not hear in spirit the spiritual voice because it is also outwardly
   heard. The spiritual voice is the effect on the soul of the audible voice,
   as material sounds strike the ear, and impress the meaning of it on the
   mind. This we learn from David when he said, He will give to His voice the
   voice of strength; [139] this strength is the interior voice. He will give
   to His voice ” that is, the outward voice, audibly heard ” the voice of
   strength which is felt within. God is an infinite voice, and communicating
   Himself thus to the soul produces the effect of an infinite voice.

   15. This voice was heard by St. John, saying in the Revelation, I heard a
   voice from heaven as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of great
   thunder. And, lest it should be supposed that a voice so strong was
   distressing and harsh, he adds immediately, The voice which I heard was as
   the voice of harpers harping on their harps. [140] Ezekiel says that this
   sound as of many waters was as it were the sound of the High God, [141]
   profoundly and sweetly communicated in it. This voice is infinite, because,
   as I have said, it is God Who communicates Himself, speaking in the soul;
   but He adapts Himself to each soul, uttering the voice of strength according
   to its capacity, in majesty and joy. And so the bride sings in the Canticle:
   Let Your voice sound in my ears, for Your voice is sweet. [142]


   The whisper of the amorous gales.

   16. Two things are to be considered here ” gales and whisper. The amorous
   gales are the virtues and graces of the Beloved, which, because of its union
   with the Bridegroom, play around the soul, and, most lovingly sent forth,
   touch it in their own substance. The whisper of the gales is a most sublime
   and sweet knowledge of God and of His attributes, which overflows into the
   understanding from the contact of the attributes of God with the substance
   of the soul. This is the highest delight of which the soul is capable in
   this life.

   17. That we may understand this the better, we must keep in mind that as in
   a gale two things are observable ” the touch of it, and the whisper or sound
   ” so there are two things observable also in the communications of the
   Bridegroom ” the sense of delight, and the understanding of it. As the touch
   of the air is felt in the sense of touch, and the whisper of it heard in the
   ear, so also the contact of the perfections of the Beloved is felt and
   enjoyed in the touch of the soul ” that is, in the substance thereof,
   through the instrumentality of the will; and the knowledge of the attributes
   of God felt in the hearing of the soul ” that is, in the understanding.

   18. The gale is said to blow amorously when it strikes deliciously,
   satisfying his desire who is longing for the refreshing which it ministers;
   for it then revives and soothes the sense of touch, and while the sense of
   touch is thus soothed, that of hearing also rejoices and delights in the
   sound and whisper of the gale more than the touch in the contact of the air,
   because the sense of hearing is more spiritual, or, to speak with greater
   correctness, is more nearly connected with the spiritual than is that of
   touch, and the delight thereof is more spiritual than is that of the touch.
   So also, inasmuch as this touch of God greatly satisfies and comforts the
   substance of the soul, sweetly fulfilling its longing to be received into
   union; this union, or touch, is called amorous gales, because, as I said
   before, the perfections of the Beloved are by it communicated to the soul
   lovingly and sweetly, and through it the whisper of knowledge to the
   understanding. It is called whisper, because, as the whisper of the air
   penetrates subtly into the organ of hearing, so this most subtle and
   delicate knowledge enters with marvelous sweetness and delight into the
   inmost substance of the soul, which is the highest of all delights.

   19. The reason is that substantial knowledge is now communicated
   intelligibly, and stripped of all accidents and images, to the
   understanding, which philosophers call passive or passible, because inactive
   without any natural efforts of its own during this communication. This is
   the highest delight of the soul, because it is in the understanding, which
   is the seat of fruition, as theologians teach, and fruition is the vision of
   God. Some theologians think, inasmuch as this whisper signifies the
   substantial intelligence, that our father Elijah had a vision of God in the
   delicate whisper of the air, which he heard on the mount at the mouth of the
   cave. The Holy Scripture calls it the whistling of a gentle wind, [143]
   because knowledge is begotten in the understanding by the subtle and
   delicate communication of the Spirit. The soul calls it here the whisper of
   the amorous gales, because it flows into the understanding from the loving
   communication of the perfections of the Beloved. This is why it is called
   the whisper of the amorous gales.

   20. This divine whisper which enters in by the ear of the soul is not only
   substantial knowledge, but a manifestation also of the truths of the
   Divinity, and a revelation of the secret mysteries thereof. For in general,
   in the Holy Scriptures, every communication of God said to enter in by the
   ear is a manifestation of pure truths to the understanding, or a revelation
   of the secrets of God. These are revelations on purely spiritual visions,
   and are communicated directly to the soul without the intervention of the
   senses, and thus, what God communicates through the spiritual ear is most
   profound and most certain. When St. Paul would express the greatness of the
   revelations made to him, he did not say, I saw or I perceived secret
   words, but I heard secret words which it is not granted to man to
   utter. [144] It is thought that St. Paul also saw God, as our father
   Elijah, in the whisper of a gentle air. For as faith comes by hearing ” so
   the Apostle teaches ” that is, by the hearing of the material ear, so also
   that which the faith teaches, the intelligible truth, comes by spiritual
   hearing.

   21. The prophet Job, speaking to God, when He revealed Himself to him,
   teaches the same doctrine, saying, With the hearing of the ear I have heard
   You, but now my eye sees You. [145] It is clear, from this, that to hear
   with the ear of the soul is to see with the eye of the passive
   understanding. He does not say, I heard with the hearing of my ears, but
   with the hearing of my ear; nor, with the seeing of my eyes, but with
   the eye of my understanding; the hearing of the soul is, therefore, the
   vision of the understanding.

   22. Still, we are not to think that what the soul perceives, though pure
   truth, can be the perfect and clear fruition of Heaven. For though it is
   free from accidents, as I said before, [146] it is dim and not clear,
   because it is contemplation, which in this life, as St. Dionysius says, is
   a ray of darkness, [147] and thus we may say that it is a ray and an image
   of fruition, because it is in the understanding, which is the seat of
   fruition. This substantial truth, called here a whisper, is the eyes
   desired which the Beloved showed to the bride, who, unable to bear the
   vision, cried, Turn them away, O my Beloved. [148]

   23. There is a passage in the book of Job which greatly confirms what I have
   said of rapture and betrothal, and, because I consider it to be much to the
   purpose, I will give it here, though it may delay us a little, and explain
   those portions of it which belong to my subject. The explanation shall be
   short, and when I shall have made it, I shall go on to explain the other
   stanza. The passage is as follows: To me there was spoken a secret word,
   said Eliphaz the Themanite, and, as it were, my ear by stealth received the
   veins of its whisper. In the horror of a vision by night, when deep sleep is
   wont to hold men, fear held me and trembling, and all my bones were made
   sore afraid: and when the spirit passed before me the hair of my flesh stood
   upright. There stood one whose countenance I knew not, an image before my
   eyes, and I heard the voice, as it were, of a gentle wind. [149]

   24. This passage contains almost all I said about rapture in the thirteenth
   stanza, where the bride says: Turn them away, O my Beloved. The word
   spoken in secret to Eliphaz is that secret communication which by reason of
   its greatness the soul was not able to endure, and, therefore, cried out:
   Turn them away, O my Beloved. Eliphaz says that his ear as it were by
   stealth received the veins of its whisper. By that is meant the pure
   substance which the understanding receives, for the veins here denote the
   interior substance. The whisper is that communication and touch of the
   virtues whereby the said substance is communicated to the understanding. It
   is called a whisper because of its great gentleness. And the soul calls it
   the amorous gales because it is lovingly communicated. It is said to be
   received as it were by stealth, for as that which is stolen is alienated, so
   this secret is alien to man, speaking in the order of nature, because that
   which he received does not appertain to him naturally, and thus it was not
   lawful for him to receive it; neither was it lawful for St. Paul to repeat
   what he heard. For this reason the prophet says twice, My secret to myself,
   my secret to myself. [150]

   25. When Eliphaz speaks of the horror of the vision by night, and of the
   fear and trembling that seized upon him, he refers to the awe and dread that
   comes upon the soul naturally in rapture, because in its natural strength it
   is unable, as I said before, [151] to endure the communication of the Spirit
   of God. The prophet gives us to understand that, as when sleep is about to
   fall upon men, a certain vision which they call a nightmare is wont to
   oppress and terrify them in the interval between sleeping and waking, which
   is the moment of the approach of sleep, so in the spiritual passage between
   the sleep of natural ignorance and the waking of the supernatural
   understanding, which is the beginning of an ecstasy or rapture, the
   spiritual vision then revealed makes the soul fear and tremble.

   26. All my bones were affrighted; that is, were shaken and disturbed. By
   this he meant a certain dislocation of the bones which takes place when the
   soul falls into an ecstasy. This is clearly expressed by Daniel when he saw
   the angel, saying, O my lord, at the sight of you my joints are loosed.
   [152] When the spirit passed before me ” that is, When my spirit was made
   to transcend the ways and limitations of nature in ecstasies and raptures
   ” the hair of my flesh stood upright; that is, my body was chilled, and
   the flesh contracted, like that of a dead man.

   27. There stood One ” that is God, Who reveals Himself after this manner
   ” Whose countenance knew not: in these communications or visions, however
   high they may be, the soul neither knows nor beholds the face and being of
   God. An image before my eyes; that is, the knowledge of the secret words
   was most deep, as it were the image and face of God; but still this is not
   the essential vision of God. I heard the voice, as it were, of a gentle
   wind; this is the whisper of the amorous gales ” that is, of the Beloved of
   the soul.

   28. But it is not to be supposed that these visits of God are always
   attended by such terrors and distress of nature: that happens to them only
   who are entering the state of illumination and perfection, and in this kind
   of communication; for in others they come with great sweetness.
     _________________________________________________________________

   [133] Gen. 6:21

   [134] John 1:3, 4. See Stanza viii.

   [135] Isa. 66:12

   [136] Luke 1:52

   [137] Acts 2:2

   [138] John 12:29

   [139] Ps. 67:34

   [140] Rev. 14:2

   [141] Ezek. 1:24

   [142] Cant. 2:14

   [143] 1 Kings 19:12

   [144] 2 Cor. 12:4

   [145] Job 42:5

   [146] Sect. 20.

   [147] ˜De Mystica Theologia, ch. i.

   [148] Cant. 6:4

   [149] Job 4:12-16

   [150] Isa. 24:16

   [151] Stan. xiii. sect. 1.

   [152] Dan. 10:16
     _________________________________________________________________

STANZA XV

   THE tranquil night. In this spiritual sleep in the bosom of the Beloved
   the soul is in possession and fruition of all the calm, repose, and quiet of
   a peaceful night, and receives at the same time in God a certain dim,
   unfathomable divine intelligence. This is the reason why it says that the
   Beloved is to it the tranquil night.

   2. At the approaches of the dawn. This tranquil night is not like a night
   of darkness, but rather like the night when the sunrise is drawing nigh.
   This tranquillity and repose in God is not all darkness to the soul, as the
   dark night is, but rather tranquillity and repose in the divine light and in
   a new knowledge of God, whereby the mind, most sweetly tranquil, is raised
   to a divine light.

   3. This divine light is here very appropriately called the approaches of the
   dawn, that is, the twilight; for as the twilight of the morn disperses the
   darkness of the night and reveals the light of day, so the mind, tranquil
   and reposing in God, is raised up from the darkness of natural knowledge to
   the morning light of the supernatural knowledge of God; not clear, indeed,
   as I have said, but dim, like the night at the approaches of the dawn. For
   as it is then neither wholly night nor wholly day, but, as they say,
   twilight, so this solitude and divine repose is neither perfectly illumined
   by the divine light nor yet perfectly alien from it.

   4. In this tranquillity the understanding is lifted up in a strange way
   above its natural comprehension to the divine light: it is like a man who,
   after a profound sleep, opens his eyes to unexpected light. This knowledge
   is referred to by David when he says, I have watched, and am become as the
   lonely sparrow on the housetop; [153] that is, I opened the eyes of my
   understanding and was raised up above all natural comprehension, lonely,
   without them, on the housetop, lifted up above all earthly
   considerations. He says that he was become as the lonely sparrow, because
   in this kind of contemplation, the spirit has the properties of the sparrow.
   These are five in number:

   i. It frequents in general high places; and the spirit, in this state, rises
   to the highest contemplation.

   ii. It is ever turning its face in the direction of the wind, and the spirit
   turns its affections thither whence comes the spirit of love, which is God.

   iii. It is in general solitary, abstaining from the companionship of others,
   and flying away when any approach it: so the spirit, in contemplation, is
   far away from all worldly thoughts, lonely in its avoidance of them; neither
   does it consent to anything except to this solitude in God.

   iv. It sings most sweetly, and so also does the spirit at this time sing to
   God; for the praises which it offers up proceed from the sweetest love, most
   pleasing to itself, and most precious in the sight of God.

   v. It is of no definite color; so also is the perfect spirit, which in this
   ecstasy is not only without any tinge of sensual affection or self-love, but
   also without any particular consideration of the things of heaven or earth;
   neither can it give any account whatever of them, because it has entered
   into the abyss of the knowledge of God.


   The silent music.

   5. In this silence and tranquillity of the night, and in this knowledge of
   the divine light, the soul discerns a marvelous arrangement and disposition
   of Gods wisdom in the diversities of His creatures and operations. All
   these, and each one of them, have a certain correspondence with God, whereby
   each, by a voice peculiar to itself, proclaims what there is in itself of
   God, so as to form a concert of sublimest melody, transcending all the
   harmonies of the world. This is the silent music, because it is knowledge
   tranquil and calm, without audible voice; and thus the sweetness of music
   and the repose of silence are enjoyed in it. The soul says that the Beloved
   is silent music, because this harmony of spiritual music is in Him
   understood and felt. He is not this only, He is also ”


   The murmuring solitude.

   6. This is almost the same as the silent music. For though the music is
   inaudible to the senses and the natural powers, it is a solitude most full
   of sound to the spiritual powers. These powers being in solitude, emptied of
   all forms and natural apprehensions, may well receive in spirit, like a
   resounding voice, the spiritual impression of the majesty of God in Himself
   and in His creatures; as it happened to St. John, who heard in spirit as it
   were the voice of harpers harping on their harps. [154] St. John heard
   this in spirit: it was not material harps that he heard, but a certain
   knowledge that he had of the praises of the blessed, which every one of
   them, each in his own degree of glory, is continually singing before God. It
   is as it were music. For as every one of the saints had the gifts of God in
   a different way, so every one of them sings His praises in a different way,
   and yet all harmonize in one concert of love, as in music.

   7. In the same way, in this tranquil contemplation, the soul beholds all
   creatures, not only the highest, but the lowest also, each one according to
   the gift of God to it, sending forth the voice of its witness to what God
   is. It beholds each one magnifying Him in its own way, and possessing Him
   according to its particular capacity; and thus all these voices together
   unite in one strain in praise of Gods greatness, wisdom, and marvelous
   knowledge. This is the meaning of those words of the Holy Spirit in the Book
   of Wisdom: The Spirit of our Lord has replenished the whole world, and that
   which contains all things has the knowledge of the voice. [155] The
   voice is the murmuring solitude, which the soul is said to know, namely,
   the witness which all things bear to God. Inasmuch as the soul hears this
   music only in solitude and in estrangement from all outward things, it calls
   it silent music and murmuring solitude. These are the Beloved.


   The supper which revives, and enkindles love.

   8. Lovers find recreation, satisfaction, and love in feasts. And because the
   Beloved in this sweet communication produces these three effects in the
   soul, He is here said to be the supper that revives, and enkindles love. In
   Holy Scripture supper signifies the divine vision, for as supper is the
   conclusion of the days labors, and the beginning of the nights repose, so
   the soul in this tranquil knowledge is made to feel that its trials are
   over, the possession of good begun, and its love of God increased. Hence,
   then, the Beloved is to the soul the supper that revives, in being the end
   of its trials, and that enkindles love, in being the beginning of the
   fruition of all good.

   9. That we may see more clearly how the Bridegroom is the supper of the
   soul, we must refer to those words of the Beloved in the Revelation:
   Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man shall hear My voice, and
   open to Me the gate, I will enter into him, and will sup with him, and he
   with Me. [156] It is evident from these words that He brings the supper
   with Him, which is nothing else but His own sweetness and delights, wherein
   He rejoices Himself, and which He, uniting Himself to the soul, communicates
   to it, making it a partaker of His joy: for this is the meaning of I will
   sup with him, and he with Me. These words describe the effect of the divine
   union of the soul with God, wherein it shares the very goods of God Himself,
   Who communicates them graciously and abundantly to it. Thus the Beloved is
   Himself the supper which revives, and enkindles love, refreshing the soul
   with His abundance, and enkindling its love in His graciousness.

   10. But before I proceed to explain the stanzas which follow, I must observe
   that, in the state of betrothal, wherein the soul enjoys this tranquillity,
   and wherein it receives all that it can receive in this life, we are not to
   suppose its tranquillity to be perfect, but that the higher part of it is
   tranquil; for the sensual part, except in the state of spiritual marriage,
   never loses all its imperfect habits, and its powers are never wholly
   subdued, as I shall show hereafter. [157] What the soul receives now is all
   that it can receive in the state of betrothal, for in that of the marriage
   the blessings are greater. Though the bride-soul has great joy in these
   visits of the Beloved in the state of betrothal, still it has to suffer from
   His absence, to endure trouble and afflictions in the lower part, and at the
   hands of the devil. But all this ceases in the state of spiritual marriage.

   NOTE

   THE bride now in possession of the virtues in their perfection, whereby she
   is ordinarily rejoicing in peace when the Beloved visits her, is now and
   then in the fruition of the fragrance and sweetness of those virtues in the
   highest degree, because the Beloved touches them within her, just as the
   sweetness and beauty of the lilies and other flowers when in their bloom are
   perceived when we handle them. For in many of these visits the soul discerns
   within itself all its virtues which God has given it; He shedding light upon
   them. The soul now, with marvelous joy and sweetness of love, binds them
   together and presents them to the Beloved as a nosegay of beautiful flowers,
   and the Beloved in accepting them ” for He truly accepts them then ” accepts
   thereby a great service. All this takes place within the soul, feeling that
   the Beloved is within it as on His own couch, for the soul presents itself
   with the virtues which is the greatest service it can render Him, and thus
   this is one of the greatest joys which in its interior conversation with God
   the soul is wont to receive in presents of this kind made to the Beloved.

   2. The devil, beholding this prosperity of the soul, and in his great malice
   envying all the good he sees in it, now uses all his power, and has recourse
   to all his devices, in order to thwart it, if possible, even in the
   slightest degree. He thinks it of more consequence to keep back the soul,
   even for an instant, from this abundance, bliss, and delight, than to make
   others fall into many and mortal sins. Other souls have little or nothing to
   lose, while this soul has much, having gained many and great treasures; for
   the loss of one grain of refined gold is greater than the loss of many of
   the baser metals.

   3. The devil here has recourse to the sensual appetites, though now they can
   give him generally but little or no help because they are mortified, and
   because he cannot turn them to any great account in distracting the
   imagination. Sometimes he stirs up many movements in the sensitive part of
   the soul, and causes other vexations, spiritual as well as sensual, from
   which the soul is unable to deliver itself until our Lord shall send His
   angel, as it is written, The angel of the Lord shall put in himself about
   them that fear Him, and shall deliver them; [158] and so establish peace,
   both in the spiritual and sensitive parts of the soul. With a view to show
   forth this truth, and to ask this favor, the soul, apprehensive by
   experience of the craft which the devil makes use of to thwart this good,
   addressing itself to the angels, whose function it is to succor it at this
   time by putting the evil spirits to flight, speaks as in the following
   stanza:
     _________________________________________________________________

   [153] Ps. 101:8

   [154] Rev. 14:2

   [155] Wisd. 1:7

   [156] Rev. 3:20

   [157] Stanza xxvi.

   [158] Ps. 33:8
     _________________________________________________________________

STANZA XVI


   Catch us the foxes,

   For our vineyard has flourished;

   While of roses

   We make a nosegay,

   And let no one appear on the hill.

   THE soul, anxious that this interior delight of love, which is the flowers
   of the vineyard, should not be interrupted, either by envious and malicious
   devils, or the raging desires of sensuality, or the various comings and
   goings of the imagination, or any other consciousness or presence of created
   things, calls upon the angels to seize and hinder all these from
   interrupting its practice of interior love, in the joy and sweetness of
   which the soul and the Son of God communicate and delight in the virtues and
   graces.


   Catch us the foxes, for our vineyard has flourished.

   2. The vineyard is the plantation in this holy soul of all the virtues which
   minister to it the wine of sweet taste. The vineyard of the soul is then
   flourishing when it is united in will to the Bridegroom, and delights itself
   in Him in all the virtues. Sometimes, as I have just said, the memory and
   the fancy are assailed by various forms and imaginings, and diverse motions
   and desires trouble the sensual part. The great variety and diversity of
   these made David say, when he felt the inconvenience and the trouble of them
   as he was drinking of the sweet wine of the spirit, thirsting greatly after
   God: For You my soul has thirsted, for You my flesh, O how many ways.
   [159]

   3. Here the soul calls the whole troop of desires and stirrings of sense,
   foxes, because of the great resemblance between them at this time. As foxes
   pretend to be asleep that they may pounce upon their prey when it comes in
   their way, so all the desires and powers of sense in the soul are asleep
   until the flowers of virtue grow, flourish, and bloom. Then the desires and
   powers of sense awake to resist the Spirit and domineer. The flesh lusts
   against the spirit, [160] and as the inclination of it is towards the
   sensual desires, it is disgusted as soon as it tastes of the Spirit, and
   herein the desires prove extremely troublesome to spiritual sweetness.


   Catch us the foxes.

   4. The evil spirits now molest the soul in two ways. They vehemently excite
   the desires, and employ them with other imaginations to assail the peaceful
   and flourishing kingdom of the soul. Then ” and this is much worse ” when
   they do not succeed in stirring up the desires, they assail the soul with
   bodily pains and noises in order to distract it. And, what is still more
   serious, they fight with spiritual horror and dread, and sometimes with
   fearful torments, which, at this time, if God permits them, they can most
   effectually bring about, for inasmuch as the soul is now spiritually
   detached, so as to perform its spiritual exercises, the devil being himself
   a spirit presents himself before it with great ease.

   5. At other times the evil spirit assails the soul with other horrors,
   before it begins to have the fruition of the sweet flowers, when God is
   beginning to draw it forth out of the house of sense that it may enter on
   the interior exercises in the garden of the Bridegroom, for he knows well
   that once entered into this state of recollection it is there so protected
   that, notwithstanding all he can do, he cannot hurt it. Very often, too,
   when the devil goes forth to meet the soul, the soul becomes quickly
   recollected in the secret depths of its interior, where it finds great
   sweetness and protection; then those terrors of Satan are so far off that
   they not only produce no fear, but are even the occasion of peace and joy.
   The bride, in the Canticle, speaks of these terrors, saying, My soul
   troubled me for the chariots of Aminadab. [161] Aminadab is the evil
   spirit, and his chariots are his assaults upon the soul, which he makes with
   great violence, noise, and confusion.

   6. The bride also says what the soul says here, namely: Catch us the little
   foxes that destroy the vineyards; for our vineyard has flourished. [162]
   She does not say, Catch me but Catch us, because she is speaking of
   herself and the Beloved; for they are one, and enjoy the flourishing of the
   vineyard together.

   7. The reason why the vineyard is said to be flourishing and not bearing
   fruit is this: the soul in this life has the fruition of virtues, however
   perfect they may be, only in their flower, because the fruit of them is
   reserved for the life to come.


   While of roses we make a nosegay.

   8. Now, at this time, while the soul is rejoicing in the flourishing of the
   vineyard, and delighting itself in the bosom of the Beloved, all its virtues
   are perfect, exhibiting themselves to the soul, and sending forth great
   sweetness and delight. The soul feels them to be in itself and in God so as
   to seem to be one vineyard most flourishing and pleasing belonging to both,
   wherein they feed and delight. Then the soul binds all its virtues together,
   makes acts of love in each of them separately, and in all together, and then
   offers them all to the Beloved, with great tenderness of love and sweetness,
   and in this the Beloved helps it, for without His help and favor it cannot
   make this union and oblation of virtue to the Beloved. Hence it says, We
   make a nosegay ” that is the Beloved and myself.

   9. This union of the virtues is called a nosegay; for as a nosegay is
   cone-like in form, and a cone is strong, containing and embracing many
   pieces firmly joined together, so this cone-like nosegay of the virtues
   which the soul makes for the Beloved is the uniform perfection of the soul
   which firmly and solidly contains and embraces many perfections, great
   virtues, and rich endowments; for all the perfections and virtues of the
   soul unite together to form but one. And while this perfection is being
   accomplished, and when accomplished, offered to the Beloved on the part of
   the soul, it becomes necessary to catch the foxes that they may not hinder
   this mutual interior communication. The soul prays not only that this
   nosegay may be carefully made, but also adds, And let no one appear on the
   hill.

   10. This divine interior exercise requires solitude and detachment from all
   things, whether in the lower part of the soul, which is that of sense, or in
   the higher, which is the rational. These two divisions comprise all the
   faculties and senses of man, and are here called the hill; because all our
   natural notions and desires being in them, as quarry on a hill, the devil
   lies in wait among these notions and desires, in order that he may injure
   the soul.


   And let no one appear on the hill.

   11. That is, let no representation or image of any object whatever,
   appertaining to any of these faculties or senses, appear in the presence of
   the soul and the Bridegroom: in other words, let the spiritual powers of the
   soul, memory, understanding, and will, be divested of all notions,
   particular inclinations, or considerations whatsoever; and let all the
   senses and faculties of the body, interior as well as exterior, the
   imagination, the fancy, the sight and hearing, and the rest, be divested of
   all occasions of distractions, of all forms, images, and representations,
   and of all other natural operations.

   12. The soul speaks in this way because it is necessary for the perfect
   fruition of this communication of God, that all the senses and powers, both
   interior and exterior, should be disencumbered and emptied of their proper
   objects and operations; for the more active they are, the greater will be
   the hindrance which they will occasion. The soul having attained to a
   certain interior union of love, the spiritual faculties of it are no longer
   active, and still less those of the body; for now that the union of love is
   actually wrought in love, the faculties of the soul cease from their
   exertions, because now that the goal is reached all employment of means is
   at an end. What the soul at this time has to do is to wait lovingly upon
   God, and this waiting is love in a continuation of unitive love. Let no one,
   therefore, appear on the hill, but the will only waiting on the Beloved in
   the offering up of self and of all the virtues in the way described.

   NOTE

   FOR the clearer understanding of the following stanza, we must keep in mind
   that the absence of the Beloved, from which the soul suffers in the state of
   spiritual betrothal, is an exceedingly great affliction, and at times
   greater than all other trials whatever. The reason is this: the love of the
   soul for God is now so vehement and deep that the pain of His absence is
   vehement and deep also. This pain is increased also by the annoyance which
   comes from intercourse with creatures, which is very great; for the soul,
   under the pressure of its quickened desire of union with God, finds all
   other conversation most painful and difficult to endure. It is like a stone
   in its flight to the place whither it is rapidly tending; every obstacle it
   meets with occasions a violent shock. And as the soul has tasted of the
   sweetness of the Beloveds visits, which are more desirable than gold and
   all that is beautiful, it therefore dreads even a momentary absence, and
   addresses itself as follows to aridities, and to the Spirit of the
   Bridegroom: ”
     _________________________________________________________________

   [159] Ps. 62:2

   [160] Gal. 5:17

   [161] Cant. 6:11

   [162] Cant. 2:15
     _________________________________________________________________

STANZA XVII


   O killing north wind, cease!

   Come, south wind, that awakens love!

   Blow through my garden,

   And let its odors flow,

   And the Beloved shall feed among the flowers.

   BESIDE the causes mentioned in the foregoing stanza, spiritual dryness also
   hinders the fruition of this interior sweetness of which I have been
   speaking, and afraid of it the soul had recourse to two expedients, to which
   it refers in the present stanza. The first is to shut the door against it by
   unceasing prayer and devotion. The second, to invoke the Holy Spirit; it is
   He Who drives away dryness from the soul, maintains and increases its love
   of the Bridegroom ” that He may establish in it the practice of virtue, and
   all this to the end that the Son of God, its Bridegroom, may rejoice and
   delight in it more and more, for its only aim is to please the Beloved.


   Killing north wind, cease.

   2. The north wind is exceedingly cold; it dries up and parches flowers and
   plants, and at the least, when it blows, causes them to draw in and shrink.
   So, dryness of spirit and the sensible absence of the Beloved, because they
   produce the same effect on the soul, exhausting the sweetness and fragrance
   of virtue, are here called the killing north wind; for all the virtues and
   affective devotions of the soul are then dead. Hence the soul addresses
   itself to it, saying, Killing north wind, cease. These words mean that the
   soul applies itself to spiritual exercise, in order to escape aridity. But
   the communications of God are now so interior that by no exertion of its
   faculties can the soul attain to them if the Spirit of the Bridegroom do not
   cause these movements of love. The soul, therefore, addresses Him, saying:


   Come, south wind, that awakens love.

   3. The south wind is another wind commonly called the south-west wind. It is
   soft, and brings rain; it makes the grass and plants grow, flowers to
   blossom and scatter their perfume abroad; in short, it is the very opposite
   in its effects of the north wind. By it is meant here the Holy Spirit, Who
   awakens love; for when this divine Breath breathes on the soul, it so
   inflames and refreshes it, so quickens the will, and stirs up the desires,
   which were before low and asleep as to the love of God, that we may well say
   of it that it quickens the love between Him and the soul. The prayer of the
   soul to the Holy Spirit is thus expressed, Blow through my garden.

   4. This garden is the soul itself. For as the soul said of itself before,
   that it was a flourishing vineyard, because the flowers of virtue which are
   in it give forth the wine of sweetness, so here it says of itself that it is
   a garden, because the flowers of perfection and the virtues are planted in
   it, flourish, and grow.

   5. Observe, too, that the expression is blow through my garden, not blow
   in it. There is a great difference between Gods breathing into the soul and
   through it. To breathe into the soul is to infuse into it graces, gifts, and
   virtues; to breathe through it is, on the part of God, to touch and move its
   virtues and perfections now possessed, renewing them and stirring them in
   such a way that they send forth their marvelous fragrance and sweetness.
   Thus aromatic spices, when shaken or touched, give forth the abundant odors
   which are not otherwise so distinctly perceived. The soul is not always in
   the conscious fruition of its acquired and infused virtues, because, in this
   life, they are like flowers in seed, or in bud, or like aromatic spices
   covered over, the perfume of which is not perceived till they are exposed
   and shaken.

   6. But God sometimes is so merciful to the bride-soul, as ” the Holy Spirit
   breathing meanwhile through the flourishing garden ” to open these buds of
   virtue and expose the aromatic herbs of the souls gifts, perfections, and
   riches, to manifest to it its interior treasures and to reveal to it all its
   beauty. It is then marvelous to behold, and sweet to feel, the abundance of
   the gifts now revealed in the soul, and the beauty of the flowers of virtue
   now flourishing in it. No language can describe the fragrance which every
   one of them diffuses, each according to its kind. This state of the soul is
   referred to in the words, Let its odors flow.

   7. So abundant are these odors at times, that the soul seems enveloped in
   delight and bathed in inestimable bliss. Not only is it conscious itself of
   them, but they even overflow it, so that those who know how to discern these
   things can perceive them. The soul in this state seems to them as a
   delectable garden, full of the joys and riches of God. This is observable in
   holy souls, not only when the flowers open, but almost always; for they have
   a certain air of grandeur and dignity which inspires the beholders with awe
   and reverence, because of the supernatural effects of their close and
   familiar conversation with God. We have an illustration of this in the life
   of Moses, the sight of whose face the people could not bear, by reason of
   the glory that rested upon it ” the effect of his speaking to God face to
   face. [163]

   8. While the Holy Spirit is breathing through the garden ” this is His
   visitation of the soul ” the Bridegroom Son of God communicates Himself to
   it in a profound way, enamored of it. It is for this that He sends the Holy
   Spirit before Him ” as He sent the Apostles [164] ” to make ready the
   chamber of the soul His bride, comforting it with delight, setting its
   garden in order, opening its flowers, revealing its gifts, and adorning it
   with the tapestry of graces. The bride-soul longs for this with all its
   might, and therefore bids the north wind not to blow, and invokes the south
   wind to blow through the garden, because she gains much here at once.

   9. The bride now gains the fruition of all her virtues in their sweetest
   exercise. She gains the fruition of her Beloved in them, because it is
   through them that He converses with her in most intimate love, and grants
   her favors greater than any of the past. She gains, too, that her Beloved
   delights more in her because of the actual exercise of virtue, which is what
   pleases her most, namely, that her Beloved should be pleased with her. She
   gains also the permanent continuance of the sweet fragrance which remains in
   the soul while the Bridegroom is present, and the bride entertains Him with
   the sweetness of her virtues, as it is written: While the King was at His
   repose, that is, in the soul, my spikenard sent forth its odor. [165] The
   spikenard is the soul, which from the flowers of its virtues sends forth
   sweet odors to the Beloved, Who dwells within it in the union of love.

   10. It is therefore very much to be desired that every soul should pray the
   Holy Spirit to blow through its garden, that the divine odors of God may
   flow. And as this is so necessary, so blissful and profitable to the soul,
   the bride desires it, and prays for it, in the words of the Canticle,
   saying, Arise, north wind, and come, south wind; blow through my garden,
   and let the aromatic spices thereof flow. [166] The soul prays for this,
   not because of the delight and bliss consequent upon it, but because of the
   delight it ministers to the Beloved, and because it prepares the way and
   announces the presence of the Son of God, Who comes to rejoice in it. Hence
   the soul adds:


   And my Beloved shall feed among the flowers.

   11. The delight which the Son of God finds now in the soul is described as
   pasture. This word expresses most forcibly the truth, because pasture not
   only gladdens, but also sustains. Thus the Son of God delights in the soul,
   in the delights thereof, and is sustained in them ” that is, He abides
   within it as in a place which pleases Him exceedingly, because the place
   itself really delights in Him. This, I believe, is the meaning of those
   words recorded in the proverbs of Solomon: My delights were to be with the
   children of men; [167] that is, when they delight to be with Me, Who am the
   Son of God.

   12. Observe, here, that it is not said that the Beloved shall feed on the
   flowers, but that He shall feed among the flowers. For, as the
   communications of the Beloved are in the soul itself, through the adornment
   of the virtues, it follows that what He feeds on is the soul which He
   transformed into Himself, now that it is prepared and adorned with these
   flowers of virtues, graces, and perfections, which are the things whereby,
   and among which, He feeds. These, by the power of the Holy Spirit, are
   sending forth in the soul the odors of sweetness to the Son of God, that He
   may feed there the more in the love thereof; for this is the love of the
   Bridegroom, to be united to the soul amid the fragrance of the flowers.

   13. The bride in the Canticle has observed this, for she had experience of
   it, saying: My Beloved is gone down into His garden, to the bed of aromatic
   spices,

   to feed in the gardens, and to gather lilies. I to my Beloved, and my
   Beloved to me, Who feeds among the lilies. [168] That is, Who feeds and
   delights in my soul, which is His garden, among the lilies of my virtues,
   perfections, and graces.

   NOTE

   IN the state of spiritual espousals the soul contemplating its great riches
   and excellence, but unable to enter into the possession and fruition of them
   as it desires, because it is still in the flesh, often suffers exceedingly,
   and then more particularly when its knowledge of them becomes more profound.
   It then sees itself in the body, like a prince in prison, subject to all
   misery, whose authority is disregarded, whose territories and wealth are
   confiscated, and who of his former substance receives but a miserable dole.
   How greatly he suffers anyone may see, especially when his household is no
   longer obedient, and his slaves and servants, forgetting all respect,
   plunder him of the scanty provisions of his table. Thus is it with the soul
   in the body, for when God mercifully admits it to a foretaste of the good
   things which He has prepared for it, the wicked servants of desire in the
   sensual part, now a slave of disorderly motions, now other rebellious
   movements, rise up against it in order to rob it of its good.

   2. The soul feels itself as if it were in the land of enemies, tyrannized
   over by the stranger, like the dead among the dead. Its feelings are those
   which the prophet Baruch gave vent to when he described the misery of
   Jacobs captivity: How happens it, O Israel, that you are in your
   enemies land? You have grown old in a strange country, you are defiled with
   the dead: you are counted with them that go down into hell. [169] This
   misery of the soul, in the captivity of the body, is thus spoken of by
   Jeremiah, saying: Is Israel a bondman or a home-born slave? Why then is he
   become a prey? The lions have roared upon him, and have made a noise. [170]
   The lions are the desires and the rebellious motions of the tyrant king of
   sensuality. In order to express the trouble which this tyrant occasions, and
   the desire of the soul to see this kingdom of sensuality with all its hosts
   destroyed, or wholly subject to the spirit, the soul lifting up its eyes to
   the Bridegroom, as to one who can effect it, speaks against those rebellious
   motions in the words of the next stanza.
     _________________________________________________________________

   [163] Exod. 34:30

   [164] Luke 22:8

   [165] Cant. 1:11

   [166] Cant. 4:16

   [167] Prov. 8:31

   [168] Cant. 6:1, 2

   [169] Bar. 3:10, 11

   [170] Jer. 2:14, 15
     _________________________________________________________________

STANZA XVIII


   O nymphs of Judea!

   While amid the flowers and the rose-trees

   The amber sends forth its perfume,

   Tarry in the suburbs,

   And touch not our thresholds.

   IT is the bride that speaks; for seeing herself, as to the higher part of
   the soul, adorned with the rich endowments of her Beloved, and seeing Him
   delighting in her, she desires to preserve herself in security, and in the
   continued fruition of them. Seeing also that hindrances will arise, as in
   fact they do, from the sensual part of the soul, which will disturb so great
   a good, she bids the operations and motions of the souls lower nature to
   cease, in the senses and faculties of it, and sensuality not to overstep its
   boundaries to trouble and disquiet the higher and spiritual portion of the
   soul: not to hinder even for a moment the sweetness she enjoys. The motions
   of the lower part, and their powers, if they show themselves during the
   enjoyment of the spirit, are so much more troublesome and disturbing, the
   more active they are.


   O nymphs of Judea.

   2. The lower, that is the sensual part of the soul, is called Judea. It is
   called Judea because it is weak, and carnal, and blind, like the Jewish
   people. All the imaginations, fancies, motions, and inclinations of the
   lower part of the soul are called nymphs, for as nymphs with their beauty
   and attractions entice men to love them, so the operations and motions of
   sensuality softly and earnestly strive to entice the will from the rational
   part, in order to withdraw it from that which is interior, and to fix it on
   that which is exterior, to which they are prone themselves. They also strive
   to influence the understanding to join with them in their low views, and to
   bring down reason to the level of sense by the attractions of the latter.
   The soul, therefore, says in effect: O sensual operations and motions.


   While amid the flowers and the rose-trees.

   3. The flowers, as I have said, are the virtues of the soul, and the
   rose-trees are its powers, memory, understanding, and will, which produce
   and nurture the flowers of divine conceptions, acts of love and the virtues,
   while the amber sends forth its perfume in the virtues and powers of the
   soul.


   The amber sends forth its perfume.

   4. The amber is the divine spirit of the Bridegroom Who dwells in the soul.
   To send forth the perfume among the flowers and the rose-trees, is to
   diffuse and communicate Himself most sweetly in the powers and virtues of
   the soul, thereby filling it with the perfume of divine sweetness.
   Meanwhile, then, when the Divine Spirit is filling my soul with spiritual
   sweetness,


   Tarry in the suburbs.

   5. In the suburbs of Judea, which is the inferior or sensual part of the
   soul. The suburbs are the interior senses, namely, memory, fancy, and
   imagination, where forms and images of things collect, by the help of which
   sensuality stirs up concupiscence and desires. These forms are the nymphs,
   and while they are quiet and tranquil the desires are also asleep. They
   enter into the suburbs of the interior senses by the gates of the outward
   senses, of sight, hearing, smell, etc. We can thus give the name of suburbs
   to all the powers and interior or exterior senses of the sensual part of the
   soul, because they are outside the walls of the city.

   6. That part of the soul which may be called the city is that which is most
   interior, the rational part, which is capable of conversation with God, the
   operations of which are contrary to those of sensuality. But there is a
   natural intercourse between those who dwell in the suburbs of the sensual
   part ” that is, the nymphs ” and those who dwell in the higher part, which
   is the city itself; and, therefore, what takes place in the lower part is
   ordinarily felt in the higher, and consequently compels attention to itself
   and disturbs the spiritual operation which is conversant with God. Hence the
   soul bids the nymphs tarry in the suburbs ” that is, to remain at rest in
   the exterior and interior senses of the sensual part,


   And touch not our thresholds.

   7. Let not even your first movements touch the higher part, for the first
   movements of the soul are the entrance and thresholds of it. When the first
   movements have passed into the reason, they have crossed the threshold, but
   when they remain as first movements only they are then said merely to touch
   the threshold, or to cry at the gate, which is the case when reason and
   sense contend over an unreasonable act. The soul here not only bids these
   not to touch it, but also charges all considerations whatever which do not
   minister to its repose and the good it enjoys to keep far away.

   NOTE

   THE soul in this state is become so great an enemy of the lower part, and
   its operations, that it would have God communicate nothing to it when He
   communicates with the higher. If He will communicate with the lower, it must
   be in a slight degree, or the soul, because of its natural weakness, will be
   unable to endure it without fainting, and consequently the spirit cannot
   rejoice in peace, because it is then troubled. For, as the wise man says,
   the body that is corrupted burdens the soul. [171] And as the soul longs
   for the highest and noblest conversation with God, which is impossible in
   the company of the sensual part, it begs of God to deal with it without the
   intervention of the senses. That sublime vision of St. Paul in the third
   heaven, wherein, he says, he saw God, but yet knew not whether he was in the
   body or out of the body, must have been, be it what it may, independent of
   the body: for if the body had any share in it, he must have known it, and
   the vision could not have been what it was, seeing that he heard secret
   words which it is not lawful for a man to speak. [172] The soul, therefore,
   knowing well that graces so great cannot be received in a vessel so mean,
   and longing to receive them out of the body, ” or at least without it,
   addresses the Bridegroom in the words that follow:
     _________________________________________________________________

   [171] Wisd. 9:15

   [172] 2 Cor. 12:2-4
     _________________________________________________________________

STANZA XIX


   Hide yourself, O my Beloved!

   Turn Your face to the mountains,

   Do not speak,

   But regard the companions

   Of her who is traveling amidst strange islands.

   HERE the bride presents four petitions to the Bridegroom. She prays that He
   would be pleased to converse with her most interiorly in the secret chamber
   of the soul. The second, that He would invest and inform her faculties with
   the glory and excellence of His Divinity. The third, that He would converse
   with her so profoundly as to surpass all knowledge and expression, and in
   such a way that the exterior and sensual part may not perceive it. The
   fourth, that He would love the many virtues and graces which He has
   implanted in her, adorned with which she is ascending upwards to God in the
   highest knowledge of the Divinity, and in transports of love most strange
   and singular, surpassing those of ordinary experience.


   Hide Yourself, O my Beloved!

   2. O my Bridegroom, most beloved, hide Yourself in the inmost depths of my
   soul, communicating Yourself to it in secret, and manifesting Your hidden
   wonders which no mortal eyes may see.


   Turn Your face to the mountains.

   3. The face of God is His divinity. The mountains are the powers of the
   soul, memory, understanding, and will. Thus the meaning of these words is:
   Enlighten my understanding with Your Divinity, and give it the divine
   intelligence, fill my will with divine love, and my memory with divine
   possession of glory. The bride here prays for all that may be prayed for;
   for she is not content with that knowledge of God once granted to Moses
   [173] ” the knowledge of Him by His works ” for she prays to see the face of
   God, which is the essential communication of His Divinity to the soul,
   without any intervening medium, by a certain knowledge thereof in the
   Divinity. This is something beyond sense, and divested of accidents,
   inasmuch as it is the contact of pure substances ” that is, of the soul and
   the Divinity.


   Do not speak.

   4. That is, do not speak as before, when Your conversation with me was known
   to the outward senses, for it was once such as to be comprehended by them;
   it was not so profound but they could fathom it. Now let Your conversation
   with me be so deep and so substantial, and so interior, as to be above the
   reach of the senses; for the substance of the spirit is incommunicable to
   sense, and the communication made through the senses, especially in this
   life, cannot be purely spiritual, because the senses are not capable of it.
   The soul, therefore, longing for that substantial and essential
   communication of God, of which sense cannot be cognizant, prays the
   Bridegroom not to speak: that is to say, let the deep secret of the
   spiritual union be such as to escape the notice of the senses, like the
   secret which St. Paul heard, and which it is not lawful for a man to speak.
   [174]


   But regard the companions.

   5. The regard of God is love and grace. The companions here are the many
   virtues of the soul, its gifts, perfections, and other spiritual graces with
   which God has endowed it; pledges, tokens, and presents of its betrothal.
   Thus the meaning of the words seems to be this: Turn Your face to the
   interior of my soul, O my Beloved; be enamored of the treasures which You
   have laid up there, so that, enamored of them, You may hide Yourself among
   them and there dwell; for in truth, though they are Yours, they are mine
   also, because You have given them.


   Of her who travels amidst strange islands.

   6. That is, Of my soul tending towards You through strange knowledge of
   You, by strange ways ” strange to sense and to the ordinary perceptions of
   nature. It is as if the bride said, by way of constraining Him to yield:
   Seeing that my soul is tending towards You through knowledge which is
   spiritual, strange, unknown to sense, also communicate Yourself to it so
   interiorly and so profoundly that the senses may not observe it.

   NOTE

   IN order to the attainment of a state of perfection so high as this of the
   spiritual marriage, the soul that aims at it must not only be purified and
   cleansed from all the imperfections, rebellions, and imperfect habits of the
   inferior part, which is now ” the old man being put away ” subject and
   obedient to the higher, but it must also have great courage and most exalted
   love for so strong and close an embrace of God. For in this state the soul
   not only attains to exceeding pureness and beauty, but also acquires a
   terrible strength by reason of that strict and close bond which in this
   union binds it to God. The soul, therefore, in order to reach this state
   must have purity, strength, and adequate love. The Holy Spirit, the author
   of this spiritual union, desirous that the soul should attain thus far in
   order to merit it, addresses Himself to the Father and the Son, saying: Our
   sister is little, and has no breasts. What shall we do to our sister in the
   day when she is to be spoken to? If she is a wall, let us build upon it
   bulwarks of silver; if she is a door, let us join it together with boards of
   cedar. [175]

   2. The bulwarks of silver are the strong heroic virtues comprised in the
   faith, which is signified by silver, and these heroic virtues are those of
   the spiritual marriage, which are built upon the soul, signified by the
   wall, relying on the strength of which, the peaceful Bridegroom reposes
   undisturbed by any infirmities. The boards of cedar are the affections and
   accessories of this deep love which is signified by the cedar-tree, and this
   is the love of the spiritual marriage. In order to join it together, that
   is, to adorn the bride, it is necessary she should be the door for the
   Bridegroom to enter through, keeping the door of the will open in a perfect
   and true consent of love, which is the consent of the betrothal given
   previous to the spiritual marriage. The breasts of the bride are also this
   perfect love which she must have in order to appear in the presence of
   Christ her Bridegroom for the perfection of such a state.

   3. It is written in the Canticle that the bride in her longing for this
   presence immediately replied, saying: I am a wall: and my breasts are as a
   tower ” that is, My soul is strong, and my love most deep ” that He may
   not fail her on that ground. The bride, too, had expressed as much in the
   preceding stanzas, out of the fullness of her longing for the perfect union
   and transformation, and particularly in the last, wherein she set before the
   Bridegroom all the virtues, graces, and good dispositions with which she was
   adorned by Him, and that with the object of making Him the prisoner of her
   love.

   4. Now the Bridegroom, to bring this matter to a close, replies in the two
   stanzas that follow, which describe Him as perfectly purifying the soul,
   strengthening and disposing it, both as to its sensual and spiritual part,
   for this state, and charging all resistance and rebellion, both of the flesh
   and of the devil, to cease, saying:
     _________________________________________________________________

   [173] Exod. 33:23

   [174] 2 Cor. 12:4

   [175] Cant. 8:8
     _________________________________________________________________

STANZAS XX, XXI

    THE BRIDEGROOM


   Light-winged birds,

   Lions, fawns, bounding does,

   Mountains, valleys, strands,

   Waters, winds, heat,

   And the terrors that keep watch by night;

   By the soft lyres

   And the siren strains, I adjure you,

   Let your fury cease,

   And touch not the wall,

   That the bride may sleep in greater security.

   HERE the Son of God, the Bridegroom, leads the bride into the enjoyment of
   peace and tranquillity in the conformity of her lower to her higher nature,
   purging away all her imperfections, subjecting the natural powers of the
   soul to reason, and mortifying all her desires, as it is expressed in these
   two stanzas, the meaning of which is as follows. In the first place the
   Bridegroom adjures and commands all vain distractions of the fancy and
   imagination from henceforth to cease, and controls the irascible and
   concupiscible faculties which were previously the sources of so much
   affliction. He brings, so far as it is possible in this life, the three
   powers of memory, understanding, and will to the perfection of their
   objects, and then adjures and commands the four passions of the soul, joy,
   hope, grief, and fear, to be still, and bids them from henceforth be
   moderate and calm.

   2. All these passions and faculties are comprehended under the expressions
   employed in the first stanza, the operations of which, full of trouble, the
   Bridegroom subdues by that great sweetness, joy, and courage which the bride
   enjoys in the spiritual surrender of Himself to her which God makes at this
   time; under the influence of which, because God transforms the soul
   effectually in Himself, all the faculties, desires, and movements of the
   soul lose their natural imperfection and become divine.


   Light-winged birds.

   3. These are the distractions of the imagination, light and rapid in their
   flight from one subject to another. When the will is tranquilly enjoying the
   sweet conversation of the Beloved, these distractions produce weariness, and
   in their swift flight quench its joy. The Bridegroom adjures them by the
   soft lyres. That is, now that the sweetness of the soul is so abundant and
   so continuous that they cannot interfere with it, as they did before when it
   had not reached this state, He adjures them, and bids them cease from their
   disquieting violence. The same explanation is to be given of the rest of the
   stanza.


   Lions, fawns, bounding does.

   4. By the lions is meant the raging violence of the irascible faculty, which
   in its acts is bold and daring as a lion. The fawns and bounding does are
   the concupiscible faculty ” that is, the power of desire, the qualities of
   which are two, timidity and rashness. Timidity betrays itself when things do
   not turn out according to our wishes, for then the mind retires within
   itself discouraged, and in this respect the soul resembles the fawns. For as
   fawns have the concupiscible faculty stronger than many other animals, so
   are they more retiring and more timid. Rashness betrays itself when we have
   our own way, for the mind is then neither retiring nor timid, but desires
   boldly, and gratifies all its inclinations. This quality of rashness is
   compared to the does, who so eagerly seek what they desire that they not
   only run, but even leap after it; hence they are described as bounding does.

   5. Thus the Bridegroom, in adjuring the lions, restrains the violence and
   controls the fury of rage; in adjuring the fawns, He strengthens the
   concupiscible faculty against timidity and irresolution; and in adjuring the
   does He satisfies and subdues the desires which were restless before,
   leaping, like deer, from one object to another, to satisfy that
   concupiscence which is now satisfied by the soft lyres, the sweetness of
   which it enjoys, and by the siren strains, in the delight of which it
   revels.

   6. But the Bridegroom does not adjure anger and concupiscence themselves,
   because these passions never cease from the soul ” but their vexations and
   disorderly acts, signified by the lions, fawns, and bounding does, for it
   is necessary that these disorderly acts should cease in this state.


   Mountains, valleys, strands.

   7. These are the vicious and disorderly actions of the three faculties of
   the soul ” memory, understanding, and will. These actions are disorderly and
   vicious when they are in extremes, or, if not in extreme, tending to one
   extreme or other. Thus the mountains signify those actions which are vicious
   in excess, mountains being high; the valleys, being low, signify those which
   are vicious in the extreme of defect. Strands, which are neither high nor
   low, but, inasmuch as they are not perfectly level, tend to one extreme or
   other, signify those acts of the three powers of the soul which depart
   slightly in either direction from the true mean and equality of justice.
   These actions, though not disorderly in the extreme, as they would be if
   they amounted to mortal sin, are nevertheless disorderly in part, tending
   towards venial sin or imperfection, however slight that tendency may be, in
   the understanding, memory, and will. He adjures also all these actions which
   depart from the true mean, and bids them cease before the soft lyres and the
   siren strains, which so effectually charm the powers of the soul as to
   occupy them completely in their true and proper functions, so that they
   avoid not only all extremes, but also the slightest tendency to them.


   Waters, winds, heat, and the terrors that keep watch by night.

   8. These are the affections of the four passions, grief, hope, joy, and
   fear. The waters are the affections of grief which afflict the soul, for
   they rush into it like water. Save me, O God, says the Psalmist, for the
   waters have come in even to my soul. [176] The winds are the affections of
   hope, for they rush forth like wind, desiring what which is not present but
   hoped for, as the Psalmist says: I opened my mouth and drew breath: because
   I longed for Your commandments. [177] That is, I opened the mouth of my
   hope, and drew in the wind of desire, because I hoped and longed for Your
   commandments. Heat is the affections of joy which, like fire, inflame the
   heart, as it is written: My heart waxed hot within me; and in my meditation
   a fire shall burn; [178] that is, while I meditate I shall have joy.

   9. The terrors that keep watch by night are the affections of fear, which
   in spiritual persons who have not attained to the state of spiritual
   marriage are usually exceedingly strong. They come sometimes from God when
   He is going to bestow certain great graces upon souls, as I said before;
   [179] He is wont then to fill the mind with dread, to make the flesh tremble
   and the senses numb, because nature is not made strong and perfect and
   prepared for these graces. They come also at times from the evil spirit,
   who, out of envy and malignity, when he sees a soul sweetly recollected in
   God, labors to disturb its tranquillity by exciting horror and dread, in
   order to destroy so great a blessing, and sometimes utters his threats, as
   it were in the interior of the soul. But when he finds that he cannot
   penetrate within the soul, because it is so recollected, and so united with
   God, he strives at least in the province of sense to produce exterior
   distractions and inconstancy, sensible pains and horrors, if perchance he
   may in this way disturb the soul in the bridal chamber.

   10. These are called terrors of the night, because they are the work of evil
   spirits, and because Satan labors, by the help thereof, to involve the soul
   in darkness, and to obscure the divine light wherein it rejoices. These
   terrors are called watchers, because they awaken the soul and rouse it from
   its sweet interior slumber, and also because Satan, their author, is ever on
   the watch to produce them. These terrors strike the soul of persons who are
   already spiritual, passively, and come either from God or the evil spirit. I
   do not refer to temporal or natural terrors, because spiritual men are not
   subject to these, as they are to those of which I am speaking.

   11. The Beloved adjures the affections of these four passions, compels them
   to cease and to be at rest, because He supplies the bride now with force,
   and courage, and satisfaction, by the soft lyres of His sweetness and the
   siren strains of His delight, so that not only they shall not domineer over
   the soul, but shall not occasion it any distaste whatever. Such is the
   grandeur and stability of the soul in this state, that, although formerly
   the waters of grief overwhelmed it, because of its own or other mens sins
   ” which is what spiritual persons most feel ” the consideration of them now
   excites neither pain nor annoyance; even the sensible feeling of compassion
   no longer exists, though the effects of it continue in perfection. The
   weaknesses of its virtues are no longer in the soul, for they are now
   constant, strong, and perfect. As the angels perfectly appreciate all
   sorrowful things without the sense of pain, and perform acts of mercy
   without the sentiment of pity, so the soul in this transformation of love.
   God, however, dispenses sometimes, on certain occasions, with the soul in
   this matter, allowing it to feel and suffer, that it may become more fervent
   in love, and grow in merit, or for some other reasons, as He dispensed with
   His Virgin Mother, St. Paul, and others. This, however, is not the ordinary
   condition of this state.

   12. Neither do the desires of hope afflict the soul now, because, satisfied
   in its union with God, so far as it is possible in this life, it has nothing
   of this world to hope for, and nothing spiritual to desire, seeing that it
   feels itself to be full of the riches of God, though it may grow in charity,
   and thus, whether living or dying, it is conformed to the will of God,
   saying with the sense and spirit, Your will be done, free from the
   violence of inclination and desires; and accordingly even its longing for
   the beatific vision is without pain.

   13. The affections of joy, also, which were wont to move the soul with more
   or less vehemence, are not sensibly diminished; neither does their abundance
   occasion any surprise. The joy of the soul is now so abundant that it is
   like the sea, which is not diminished by the rivers that flow out of it, nor
   increased by those that empty themselves into it; for the soul is now that
   fountain of which our Lord said that it is springing up into life
   everlasting. [180]

   14. I have said that the soul receives nothing new or unusual in this state
   of transformation; it seems to lose all accidental joy, which is not
   withheld even from the glorified. That is, accidental joys and sweetness are
   indeed no strangers to this soul; indeed, those which it ordinarily has
   cannot be numbered; yet, for all this, as to the substantial communication
   of the spirit, there is no increase of joy, for that which may occur anew
   the soul possesses already, and thus what the soul has already within itself
   is greater than anything that comes anew. Hence, then, whenever any subject
   of joy and gladness, whether exterior or spiritually interior, presents
   itself to the soul, the soul immediately starts rejoicing in the riches it
   possesses already within itself, and the joy it has in them is far greater
   than any which these new accessions minister, because, in a certain sense,
   God is become its possession, Who, though He delights in all things, yet in
   nothing so much as in Himself, seeing that He has all good eminently in
   Himself. Thus all accessions of joy serve to remind the soul that its real
   joy is in its interior possessions, rather than in these accidental causes,
   because, as I have said, the former are greater than the latter.

   15. It is very natural for the soul, even when a particular matter gives it
   pleasure, that, possessing another of greater worth and gladness, it should
   remember it at once and take its pleasure in it. The accidental character of
   these spiritual accessions, and the new impressions they make on the soul,
   may be said to be as nothing in comparison with that substantial source
   which it has within itself: for the soul which has attained to the perfect
   transformation, and is full-grown, grows no more in this state by means of
   these spiritual accessions, as those souls do who have not yet advanced so
   far. It is a marvelous thing that the soul, while it receives no accessions
   of delight, should still seem to do so and also to have been in possession
   of them. The reason is that it is always tasting them anew, because they are
   ever renewed; and thus it seems to be continually the recipient of new
   accessions, while it has no need of them whatever.

   16. But if we speak of that light of glory which in this, the souls
   embrace, God sometimes produces within it, and which is a certain spiritual
   communion wherein He causes it to behold and enjoy at the same time the
   abyss of delight and riches which He has laid up within it, there is no
   language to express any degree of it. As the sun when it shines upon the sea
   illumines its great depths, and reveals the pearls, and gold, and precious
   stones therein, so the divine sun of the Bridegroom, turning towards the
   bride, reveals in a way the riches of her soul, so that even the angels
   behold her with amazement and say: Who is she that comes forth as the
   morning rising, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, terrible as the army of
   a camp set in array. [181] This illumination adds nothing to the grandeur
   of the soul, notwithstanding its greatness, because it merely reveals that
   which the soul already possessed in order that it might rejoice in it.

   17. Finally, the terrors that keep watch by night do not come close to her,
   because of her pureness, courage, and confident trust in God; the evil
   spirits cannot shroud her in darkness, nor alarm her with terrors, nor
   disturb her with their violent assaults. Thus nothing can approach her,
   nothing can molest her, for she has escaped from all created things and
   entered into God, to the fruition of perfect peace, sweetness, and delight,
   so far as that is possible in this life. It is to this state that the words
   of Solomon are applicable: A secure mind is as it were a continual
   feast. [182] As in a feast we have the savor of all meat, and the sweetness
   of all music, so in this feast, which the bride keeps in the bosom of her
   Beloved, the soul rejoices in all delight, and has the taste of all
   sweetness. All that I have said, and all that may be said, on this subject,
   will always fall short of that which passes in the soul which has attained
   to this blessed state. For when it shall have attained to the peace of God,
   which, in the words of the Apostle, surpasses all understanding, [183]
   no description of its state is possible.


   By the soft lyres and the siren strains I adjure you.

   18. The soft lyres are the sweetness which the Bridegroom communicates to
   the soul in this state, and by which He makes all its troubles to cease. As
   the music of lyres fills the soul with sweetness and delight, carries it
   rapturously out of itself, so that it forgets all its weariness and grief,
   so in like manner this sweetness so absorbs the soul that nothing painful
   can reach it. The Bridegroom says, in substance: By that sweetness which I
   give you, let all your bitterness cease. The siren strains are the ordinary
   joys of the soul. These are called siren strains because, as it is said, the
   music of the sirens is so sweet and delicious that he who hears it is so
   rapt and so carried out of himself that he forgets everything. In the same
   way the soul is so absorbed in, and refreshed by, the delight of this union
   that it becomes, as it were, charmed against all the vexations and troubles
   that may assail it; it is to these the next words of the stanza refer:


   Let your fury cease.

   19. This is the troubles and anxieties which flow from unruly acts and
   affections. As anger is a certain violence which disturbs peace, overlapping
   its bounds, so also all these affections in their motions transgress the
   bounds of the peace and tranquillity of the soul, disturbing it whenever
   they touch it. Hence the Bridegroom says:


   And touch not the wall.

   20. The wall is the territory of peace and the fortress of virtue and
   perfections, which are the defenses and protection of the soul. The soul is
   the garden wherein the Beloved feeds among the flowers, defended and guarded
   for Him alone. Hence it is called in the Canticle a garden enclosed. [184]
   The Bridegroom bids all disorderly emotions not to touch the territory and
   wall of His garden.

   21. That the bride may sleep in greater security. That is, that she is
   delighting herself with more sweetness in the tranquillity and sweetness she
   has in the Beloved. That is to say, that now no door is shut against the
   soul, and that it is in its power to abandon itself whenever it wills to
   this sweet sleep of love, according to the words of the Bridegroom in the
   Canticle, I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes and the harts
   of the fields, that you raise not up nor make the beloved to awake till
   herself will. [185]

   NOTE

   THE Bridegroom was so anxious to rescue His bride from the power of the
   flesh and the devil and to set her free, that, having done so, He rejoices
   over her like the good shepherd who, having found the sheep that was lost,
   laid it upon his shoulders rejoicing; like the woman who, having found the
   money she had lost, after lighting a candle and sweeping the house, called
   together her friends and neighbors, saying, Rejoice with me. [186] So this
   loving Shepherd and Bridegroom of souls shows a marvelous joy and delight
   when He beholds a soul gained to perfection lying on His shoulders, and by
   His hands held fast in the longed-for embrace and union. He is not alone in
   His joy, for He makes the angels and the souls of the blessed partakers of
   His glory, saying, as in the Canticle, Go forth, you daughters of Zion, and
   see king Solomon in the diadem with which his mother crowned him in the day
   of his betrothal, and in the day of the joy of his heart. [187] He calls
   the soul His crown, His bride, and the joy of His heart: He carries it in
   His arms, and as a bridegroom leads it into His bridal chamber, as we shall
   see in the following stanza:
     _________________________________________________________________

   [176] Ps. 68:2

   [177] Ps. 118:131

   [178] Ps. 38:4

   [179] Stanza xiii sect. 4; xiv sect. 26.

   [180] John 4:14

   [181] Cant. 6:9

   [182] Prov. 15:15

   [183] Phil. 4:7

   [184] Cant. 4:12

   [185] Cant. 3:5

   [186] Luke 15:5, 8, 9

   [187] Cant. 3:11
     _________________________________________________________________

STANZA XXII


   The bride has entered

   The pleasant and desirable garden,

   And there reposes to her hearts content;

   Her neck reclining

   On the sweet arms of the Beloved.

   THE bride having done what she could in order that the foxes may be caught,
   the north wind cease, the nymphs, hindrances to the desired joy of the state
   of spiritual marriage, forgo their troublesome importunities, and having
   also invoked and obtained the favorable wind of the Holy Spirit, which is
   the right disposition and means for the perfection of this state, it remains
   for me now to speak of it in the stanza in which the Bridegroom calls the
   soul His bride, and speaks of two things: 1. He says that the soul, having
   gone forth victoriously, has entered the delectable state of spiritual
   marriage, which they had both so earnestly desired. 2. He enumerates the
   properties of that state, into the fruition of which the soul has entered,
   namely, perfect repose, and the resting of the neck on the arms of the
   Beloved.


   The bride has entered.

   2. For the better understanding of the arrangement of these stanzas, and of
   the way by which the soul advances till it reaches the state of spiritual
   marriage, which is the very highest, and of which, by the grace of God, I am
   now about to treat, we must keep in mind that the soul, before it enters it,
   must be tried in tribulations, in sharp mortifications, and in meditation on
   spiritual things. This is the subject of this canticle till we come to the
   fifth stanza, beginning with the words, A thousand graces diffusing. Then
   the soul enters on the contemplative life, passing through those ways and
   straits of love which are described in the course of the canticle, till we
   come to the thirteenth, beginning with Turn them away, O my Beloved! This
   is the moment of the spiritual betrothal; and then the soul advances by the
   unitive way, the recipient of many and very great communications, jewels and
   gifts from the Bridegroom as to one betrothed, and grows into perfect love,
   as appears from the stanzas which follow that beginning with Turn them
   away, O my Beloved! (the moment of betrothal), to the present, beginning
   with the words:


   The bride has entered.

   3. The spiritual marriage of the soul and the Son of God now remains to be
   accomplished. This is, beyond all comparison, a far higher state than that
   of betrothal, because it is a complete transformation into the Beloved;
   whereby they surrender each to the other the entire possession of themselves
   in the perfect union of love, wherein the soul becomes divine, and, by
   participation, God, so far as it is in this life. I believe that no soul
   ever attains to this state without being confirmed in grace, for the
   faithfulness of both is confirmed; that of God being confirmed in the soul.
   Hence it follows, that this is the very highest state possible in this life.
   As by natural marriage there are two in one flesh, [188] so also in the
   spiritual marriage between God and the soul there are two natures in one
   spirit and love, as we learn from St. Paul, who made use of the same
   metaphor, saying, He that cleaves to the Lord is one spirit. [189] So,
   when the light of a star, or of a candle, is united to that of the sun, the
   light is not that of the star, nor of the candle, but of the sun itself,
   which absorbs all other light in its own.

   4. It is of this state that the Bridegroom is now speaking, saying, The
   bride has entered; that is, out of all temporal and natural things, out of
   all spiritual affections, ways, and methods, having left on one side, and
   forgotten, all temptations, trials, sorrows, anxieties and cares,
   transformed in this embrace.


   The pleasant and desirable garden.

   5. That is, the soul is transformed in God, Who is here called the pleasant
   garden because of the delicious and sweet repose which the soul finds in
   Him. But the soul does not enter the garden of perfect transformation, the
   glory and the joy of the spiritual marriage, without passing first through
   the spiritual betrothal, the mutual faithful love of the betrothed. When the
   soul has lived for some time as the bride of the Son, in perfect and sweet
   love, God calls it and leads it into His flourishing garden for the
   celebration of the spiritual marriage. Then the two natures are so united,
   what is divine is so communicated to what is human, that, without undergoing
   any essential change, each seems to be God ” yet not perfectly so in this
   life, though still in a manner which can neither be described nor conceived.

   6. We learn this truth very clearly from the Bridegroom Himself in the
   Canticle, where He invites the soul, now His bride, to enter this state,
   saying: I am come into my garden, O My sister, My bride: I have gathered My
   myrrh with My aromatic spices. [190] He calls the soul His sister, His
   bride, for it is such in love by that surrender which it has made of itself
   before He had called it to the state of spiritual marriage, when, as He
   says, He gathered His myrrh with His aromatic spices; that is, the fruits of
   flowers now ripe and made ready for the soul, which are the delights and
   grandeurs communicated to it by Himself in this state, that is Himself, and
   for which He is the pleasant and desirable garden.

   7. The whole aim and desire of the soul and of God, in all this, is the
   accomplishment and perfection of this state, and the soul is therefore never
   weary till it reaches it; because it finds there a much greater abundance
   and fullness in God, a more secure and lasting peace, and a sweetness
   incomparably more perfect than in the spiritual betrothal, seeing that it
   reposes between the arms of such a Bridegroom, Whose spiritual embraces are
   so real that it, through them, lives the life of God. Now is fulfilled what
   St. Paul referred to when he said: I live; now not I, but Christ lives in
   me. [191] And now that the soul lives a life so happy and so glorious as
   this life of God, consider what a sweet life it must be ” a life where God
   sees nothing displeasing, and where the soul finds nothing irksome, but
   rather the glory and delight of God in the very substance of itself, now
   transformed in Him.


   And there reposes to her hearts content; her neck reclining on the sweet
   arms of the Beloved.

   8. The neck is the souls strength, by means of which its union with the
   Beloved is wrought; for the soul could not endure so close an embrace if it
   had not been very strong. And as the soul has labored in this strength,
   practiced virtue, overcome vice, it is fitting that it should rest there
   from its labors, her neck reclining on the sweet arms of the Beloved.

   9. This reclining of the neck on the arms of God is the union of the souls
   strength, or, rather, of the souls weakness, with the strength of God, in
   Whom our weakness, resting and transformed, puts on the strength of God
   Himself. The state of spiritual matrimony is therefore most fitly designated
   by the reclining of the neck on the sweet arms of the Beloved; seeing that
   God is the strength and sweetness of the soul, Who guards and defends it
   from all evil and gives it to taste of all good.

   10. Hence the bride in the Canticle, longing for this state, says to the
   Bridegroom: Who shall give to me You my brother, sucking the breast of my
   mother, that I may find You without, and kiss You, and now no man may
   despise me. [192] By addressing Him as her Brother she shows the equality
   between them in the betrothal of love, before she entered the state of
   spiritual marriage. Sucking the breast of my mother signifies the drying
   up of the passions and desires, which are the breasts and milk of our mother
   Eve in our flesh, which are a bar to this state. The finding Him without
   is to find Him in detachment from all things and from self when the bride is
   in solitude, spiritually detached, which takes place when all the desires
   are quenched. And kiss You ” that is, be united with the Bridegroom, alone
   with Him alone.

   11. This is the union of the nature of the soul, in solitude, cleansed from
   all impurity, natural, temporal, and spiritual, with the Bridegroom alone,
   with His nature, by love only ” that of love which is the only love of the
   spiritual marriage, wherein the soul, as it were, kisses God when none
   despises it nor makes it afraid. For in this state the soul is no longer
   molested, either by the devil, or the flesh, or the world, or the desires,
   seeing that here is fulfilled what is written in the Canticle: Winter is
   now past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers have appeared in our
   land. [193]

   NOTE

   WHEN the soul has been raised to the high state of spiritual marriage, the
   Bridegroom reveals to it, as His faithful consort, His own marvelous secrets
   most readily and most frequently, for he who truly and sincerely loves hides
   nothing from the object of his affections. The chief matter of His
   communications are the sweet mysteries of His incarnation, the ways and
   means of redemption, which is one of the highest works of God, and so is to
   the soul one of the sweetest. Though He communicates many other mysteries,
   He speaks in the following stanza of His incarnation only, as being the
   chief; and thus addresses the soul in the words that follow:
     _________________________________________________________________

   [188] Gen. 2:24

   [189] 1 Cor 6:17

   [190] Cant. 5:1

   [191] Gal. 2:20

   [192] Cant. 8:1

   [193] Cant. 2:11, 12
     _________________________________________________________________

STANZA XXIII


   Beneath the apple-tree

   There were you betrothed;

   There I gave you My hand,

   And you were redeemed

   Where your mother was corrupted.

   THE Bridegroom tells the soul of the wondrous way of its redemption and
   betrothal to Himself, by referring to the way in which the human race was
   lost. As it was by the forbidden tree of paradise that our nature was
   corrupted in Adam and lost, so it was by the tree of the Cross that it was
   redeemed and restored. The Bridegroom there stretched forth the hand of His
   grace and mercy, in His death and passion, making void the law of
   commandments [194] which original sin had placed between us and God.


   Beneath the apple-tree,

   2. That is the wood of the Cross, where the Son of God was conqueror, and
   where He betrothed our human nature to Himself, and, by consequence, every
   soul of man. There, on the Cross, He gave us grace and pledges of His love.


   There were you betrothed, there I gave you My hand.

   3. Help and grace, lifting you up out of your base and miserable condition
   to be My companion and My bride.


   And you were redeemed where your mother was corrupted.

   4. Your mother, human nature, was corrupted in her first parents beneath
   the forbidden tree, and you were redeemed beneath the tree of the Cross. If
   your mother at that tree sentenced you to die, I from the Cross have given
   you life. It is thus that God reveals the order and dispositions of His
   wisdom: eliciting good from evil, and turning that which has its origin in
   evil to be an instrument of greater good. This stanza is nearly word for
   word what the Bridegroom in the Canticle says to the bride: Under the
   apple-tree I raised you up: there your mother was corrupted; there she was
   deflowered that bare you. [195]

   5. It is not the betrothal of the Cross that I am speaking of now ” that
   takes place, once for all, when God gives the first grace to the soul in
   baptism. I am speaking of the betrothal in the way of perfection, which is a
   progressive work. And though both are but one, yet there is a difference
   between them. The latter is effected in the way of the soul, and therefore
   slowly: the former in the way of God, and therefore at once.

   6. The betrothal of which I am speaking is that of which God speaks Himself
   by the mouth of the prophet Ezekiel, saying: You were cast out upon the
   face of the earth in the abjection of your soul, in the day that you were
   born. And passing by you, I saw that you were trodden under foot in your
   blood; and I said to you when you were in your blood: Live: I said to you, I
   say; in your blood live. Multiplied as the spring of the field have I made
   you; and you were multiplied and made great, and you went in, and came to
   the ornaments of woman; your breasts swelled and your hair budded: and you
   were naked and full of confusion. And I passed by you and saw you, and
   behold, your time, the time of lovers; and I spread My garment over you and
   covered your ignominy. And I swore to you; and I entered a covenant with
   you, says the Lord God; and you were made Mine. And I washed you with water,
   and made clean your blood from off you: and I anointed you with oil. And I
   clothed you with diverse colors, and shod you with hyacinth, and I girded
   you with silk and clothed you with fine garments. And I adorned you with
   ornaments, and put bracelets on your hands, and a chain about your neck. And
   I put a jewel upon your forehead and rings in your ears, and a crown of
   beauty on your head. And you were adorned with gold and silver, and were
   clothed with silk, and embroidered work, and many colors: you ate fine
   flour, and honey, and oil, and were made beautiful exceedingly, and advanced
   to be a queen. And your name went forth among the nations because of your
   beauty. [196] These are the words of Ezekiel, and this is the state of that
   soul of which I am now speaking.

   NOTE

   AFTER the mutual surrender to each other of the bride and the Beloved, comes
   their bed. Thereon the bride enters into the joy of Christ. Thus the present
   stanza refers to the bed, which is pure and chaste, and divine, and in which
   the bride is pure, divine, and chaste. The bed is nothing else but the
   Bridegroom Himself, the Word, the Son of God, in Whom, through the union of
   love, the bride reposes. This bed is said to be of flowers, for the
   Bridegroom is not only that, but, as He says Himself of Himself, I am the
   flower of the field and the lily of the valleys. [197] The soul reposes not
   only on the bed of flowers, but on that very flower which is the Son of God,
   and which contains in itself the divine odor, fragrance, grace, and beauty,
   as He says by the mouth of David, With me is the beauty of the field.
   [198] The soul, therefore, in the stanza that follows, celebrates the
   properties and beauties of its bed, saying:
     _________________________________________________________________

   [194] Eph. 2:15

   [195] Cant. 8:5

   [196] Ezek. 16:5-14

   [197] Cant. 2:1

   [198] Ps. 49:11
     _________________________________________________________________

STANZA XXIV

    THE BRIDE


   Our bed is of flowers

   By dens of lions encompassed,

   Hung with purple,

   Made in peace,

   And crowned with a thousand shields of gold.

   IN two of the foregoing stanzas ” the fourteenth and the fifteenth ” the
   bride-soul celebrated the grace and magnificence of the Beloved, the Son of
   God. In the present stanza she not only pursues the same subject, but also
   sings of her high and blessed state, and her own security in it. She then
   proceeds to the virtues and rich gifts with which she is endowed and adorned
   in the chamber of the Bridegroom; for she says that she is in union with
   Him, and is strong in virtue. Next she says that she has attained to the
   perfection of love, and then that she enjoys perfect spiritual peace,
   endowed and adorned with gifts and graces, so far as it is possible to have
   them in this life. The first subject of the stanza is the joy which the
   bride feels in her union with the Beloved, saying:


   Our bed is of flowers.

   2. I have already said that this bed of the soul is the bosom and love of
   the Son of God, full of flowers to the soul, which now united to God and
   reposing in Him, as His bride, shares the bosom and love of the Beloved.
   That is, the soul is admitted to a knowledge of the wisdom, secrets and
   graces, and gifts and powers of God, whereby it is made so beautiful, so
   rich, so abounding in delights that it seems to be lying on a bed of
   many-colored divine flowers, the touch of which makes it thrill with joy,
   and the odors of which refresh it.

   3. This union of love with God is therefore most appropriately called a bed
   of flowers, and is so called by the bride in the Canticle, saying to the
   Beloved, Our bed is of flowers. [199] She speaks of it as ours, because
   the virtues and the love, one and the same, of the Beloved are common to
   both together, and the delight of both is one and the same; as it is
   written: My delights were to be with the children of men. [200] The bed is
   said to be of flowers, because in this state the virtues in the soul are
   perfect and heroic, which they could not be until the bed had flowered in
   perfect union with God.


   By dens of lions encompassed.

   4. The dens of lions signify the virtues with which the soul is endowed in
   the state of union. The dens of lions are safe retreats, protected from all
   other animals, who, afraid of the boldness and strength of the lion within,
   are afraid not only to enter, but even to appear in sight. So each virtue of
   the soul in the state of perfection is like a den of lions where Christ
   dwells united to the soul in that virtue; and in every one of them as a
   strong lion. The soul also, united to Him in those very virtues, is as a
   strong lion, because it then partakes of the perfections of God.

   5. Thus, then, the perfect soul is so defended, so strong in virtue, and in
   all virtues together, reposing on the flowery bed of its union with God,
   that the evil spirits are not only afraid to assault it, but even dare not
   appear before it; such is their dread of it, when they behold it strong,
   courageous, and mature in its perfect virtues, on the bed of the Beloved.
   The evil spirits fear a soul transformed in the union of love as much as
   they fear the Beloved Himself, and they dare not look upon it, for Satan is
   in great fear of that soul which has attained to perfection.

   6. The souls bed is encompassed by virtues: they are the dens, for when the
   soul has advanced to perfection, its virtues are so perfectly ordered, and
   so joined together and bound up one with another, each supporting the other,
   that no part of it is weak or exposed. Not only is Satan unable to penetrate
   within it, but even worldly things, whether great or little, fail to disturb
   or annoy it, or even move it; for being now free from all molestation of
   natural affections, and a stranger to the worry of temporal anxieties, it
   enjoys in security and peace the participation of God.

   7. This is that for which the bride longed when she said, Who shall give to
   me You my brother, sucking the breast of my mother, that I may find You
   without, and kiss You, and now no man may despise me? [201] The kiss here
   is the union of which I am speaking, whereby the soul, by love, becomes in a
   sense the equal of God. This is the object it desires when it says, Who
   shall give to me You my brother? That means and makes equality. Sucking
   the breast of my mother; that is, destroying all the imperfections and
   desires of nature which the soul inherits from its mother Eve. That I may
   find You without; that is, be united to You alone, away from all things,
   in detachment of the will and desires. And now no man may despise me;
   that is, the world, the devil, and the flesh will not venture to assail it,
   for being free and purified, and also united to God, none of these can
   molest it. Thus, then, the soul is in the enjoyment now of habitual
   sweetness and tranquillity that never fail it.

   8. But beside this habitual contentment and peace, the flowers of the
   virtues of this garden so open in the soul and diffuse their odors that it
   seems to be, and is, full of the delights of God. I say that the flowers
   open; because the soul, though filled with the virtues in perfection, is not
   always in the actual fruition of them, notwithstanding its habitual
   perception of the peace and tranquillity which they produce. We may say of
   these virtues that they are in this life like the budding flowers of a
   garden; they offer a most beautiful sight ” opening under the inspirations
   of the Holy Spirit ” and diffuse most marvelous perfumes in great variety.

   9. Sometimes the soul will discern in itself the mountain flowers ” the
   fullness, grandeur, and beauty of God ” intermingled with the lilies of the
   valley ” rest, refreshment, and defense; and again among them, the fragrant
   roses of the strange islands ” the strange knowledge of God; and further,
   the perfume of the water lilies of the roaring torrents ” the majesty of God
   filling the whole soul. And amid all this, it enjoys the exquisite fragrance
   of the jasmine, and the whisper of the amorous gales, the fruition of which
   is granted to the soul in the estate of union, and in the same way all the
   other virtues and graces, the calm knowledge, silent music, murmuring
   solitude, and the sweet supper of love; and the joy of all this is such as
   to make the soul say in truth, Our bed is of flowers, by dens of lions
   encompassed. Blessed is that soul which in this life deserves at times to
   enjoy the perfume of these divine flowers.


   Hung with purple.

   10. Purple in Holy Scripture means charity, and kings are clad in it, and
   for that reason the soul says that the bed of flowers is hung with purple,
   because all the virtues, riches, and blessings of it are sustained,
   flourish, and are delighted only in charity and love of the King of heaven;
   without that love the soul can never delight in the bed nor in the flowers
   thereof. All these virtues, therefore, are, in the soul, as if hung on the
   love of God, as on that which preserves them, and they are, as it were,
   bathed in love; for all and each of them always make the soul love God, and
   on all occasions and in all actions they advance in love to a greater love
   of God. That is what is meant by saying that the bed is hung with purple.

   11. This is well expressed in the sacred Canticle: King Solomon has made
   himself a litter of the wood of Lebanon; the pillars thereof he has made of
   silver, the seat of gold, the going up of purple; the midst he has paved
   with charity. [202] The virtues and graces which God lays in the bed of the
   soul are signified by the wood of Lebanon: the pillars of silver and the
   seat of gold are love, for, as I have said, the virtues are maintained by
   love, and by the love of God and of the soul are ordered and bring forth
   fruit.


   Made in peace.

   12. This is the fourth excellence of the bed, and depends on the third, of
   which I have just spoken. For the third is perfect charity, the property of
   which is, as the Apostle says, to cast out fear; [203] hence the perfect
   peace of the soul, which is the fourth excellence of this bed. For the
   clearer understanding of this we must keep in mind that each virtue is in
   itself peaceful, gentle, and strong, and consequently, in the soul which
   possesses them, produces peace, gentleness, and fortitude. Now, as the bed
   is of flowers, formed of the flowers of virtues, all of which are peaceful,
   gentle, and strong, it follows that the bed is wrought in peace, and the
   soul is peaceful, gentle, and strong, which are three qualities unassailable
   by the world, Satan, and the flesh. The virtues preserve the soul in such
   peace and security that it seems to be wholly built up in peace. The fifth
   property of this bed of flowers is explained in the following words:


   Crowned with a thousand shields of gold.

   13. The shields are the virtues and graces of the soul, which, though they
   are also the flowers, serve for its crown, and the reward of the toil by
   which they are acquired. They serve also, like strong shields, as a
   protection against the vices, which it overcame by the practice of them; and
   the bridal bed of flowers therefore ” that is, the virtues, the crown and
   defense ” is adorned with them by way of reward, and protected by them as
   with a shield. The shields are said to be of gold, to show the great worth
   of the virtues. The bride in the Canticle sets forth the same truth, saying:
   Three score valiant men of the most valiant of Israel surround the little
   bed of Solomon, all holding swords; . . . every mans sword upon his thigh,
   because of fears in the night. [204]

   14. Thus in this stanza the bride speaks of a thousand shields, to express
   the variety of the virtues, gifts, and graces with which God has endowed the
   soul in this state. The Bridegroom also in the Canticle has employed the
   same expression, in order to show forth the innumerable virtues of the soul,
   saying: Your neck is as the tower of David, which is built with bulwarks; a
   thousand shields hang upon it, all the armor of valiant men. [205]

   NOTE

   THE soul, having attained to perfection, is not satisfied with magnifying
   and extolling the excellencies of the Beloved, the Son of God, nor with
   recounting and giving thanks for the graces received at His hands and the
   joy into which it has entered, but recounts also the graces conferred on
   other souls. In this blessed union of love the soul is able to contemplate
   both its own and others graces; thus praising Him and giving Him thanks for
   the many graces bestowed upon others, it sings as in the following stanza:
     _________________________________________________________________

   [199] Cant. 1:15

   [200] Prov. 8:31

   [201] Cant. 8:1

   [202] Cant. 3:9, 10

   [203] 1 John 4:18

   [204] Cant. 3:7, 8

   [205] Cant. 4:4
     _________________________________________________________________

STANZA XXV


   In Your footsteps

   The young ones run Your way;

   At the touch of the fire

   And by the spiced wine,

   The divine balsam flows.

   HERE the bride gives thanks to her Beloved for three graces which devout
   souls receive from Him, by which they encourage and excite themselves to
   love God more and more. She speaks of them here because she has had
   experience of them herself in this state of union. The first is sweetness,
   which He gives them, and which is so efficacious that it makes them run
   swiftly on the road of perfection. The second is a visit of love, by which
   they are suddenly set on fire with love. The third is overflowing charity
   infused into them, with which He so inebriates them that they are as much
   excited by it as by the visit of love, to utter the praises of God, and to
   love Him with all sweetness.


   In Your footsteps.

   2. These are the marks on the ground by which we trace the course of one we
   seek. The sweetness and knowledge of Himself which God communicates to the
   soul that seeks Him are the footsteps by which it traces and recognizes Him.
   Thus the soul says to the Word, the Bridegroom, In Your footsteps ” in
   the traces of Your sweetness which You diffuse, and the odors which You
   scatter.


   The young ones run Your way.

   3. Devout souls run with youthful vigor in the sweetness which Your
   footsteps communicate. They run in many ways and in various directions ”
   each according to the spirit which God bestows and the vocation He has given
   ” in the diversified forms of spiritual service on the road of everlasting
   life, which is evangelical perfection, where they meet the Beloved in the
   union of love, in spiritual detachment from all things.

   4. This sweetness and impression of Himself which God leaves in the soul
   render it light and active in running after Him; for the soul then does
   little or nothing in its own strength towards running along this road, being
   rather attracted by the divine footsteps, so that it not only advances, but
   even runs, as I said before, in many ways. The bride in the Canticle,
   therefore, prays for the divine attraction, saying, Draw me, we will run
   after You to the odor of Your ointments; [206] and David says, I have run
   the way of Your commandments, when You dilated my heart. [207]


   At the touch of the fire, and by the spiced wine, the divine balsam
   flows.

   5. I said, while explaining the previous lines, that souls run in His
   footsteps in the way of exterior works. But the three lines I have just
   quoted refer to the interior acts of the will, when souls are under the
   influence of the other two graces, and interior visits of the Beloved. These
   are the touch of fire, and spiced wine; and the interior act of the will,
   which is the result of these visits, is the flowing of the divine balsam.
   The contact of the fire is that most delicate touch of the Beloved which the
   soul feels at times even when least expecting it, and which sets the heart
   on fire with love, as if a spark of fire had fallen upon it and made it
   burn. Then the will, in an instant, like one roused from sleep, burns with
   the fire of love, longs for God, praises Him and gives Him thanks, worships
   and honors Him, and prays to Him in the sweetness of love.

   6. This is the flowing of the divine balsam, which obeys the touch of the
   fire that issues forth from the consuming love of God which that fire
   kindled; the divine balsam which comforts the soul and heals it with its
   odor and its substance.

   7. The bride in the Canticle speaks of this divine touch, saying, My
   Beloved put His hand through the opening, and my belly trembled at His
   touch. [208] The touch of the Beloved is the touch of love, and His hand is
   the grace He bestows upon the soul, and the opening through which He puts
   His hand is the vocation and the perfection, at least the degree of
   perfection of the soul; for accordingly will His touch be heavier or
   lighter, in proportion to its spiritual state. The belly that trembled is
   the will, in which the touch is effected, and the trembling is the stirring
   up of the desires and affections to love, long for, and praise God, which is
   the flowing of the balsam from this touch.

   8. The spiced wine is that exceedingly great grace which God sometimes
   bestows upon advanced souls, when the Holy Spirit inebriates them with the
   sweet, luscious, and strong wine of love. Hence it is here called spiced
   wine, for as such wine is prepared by fermentation with many and diverse
   aromatic and strengthening herbs; so this love, the gift of God to the
   perfect, is in the soul prepared and seasoned with the virtues already
   acquired. This love, seasoned with the precious spices, communicates to the
   soul such a strong, abundant inebriation when God visits it that it pours
   forth with great effect and force those acts of rapturous praise, love, and
   worship which I referred to before, and that with a marvelous longing to
   labor and to suffer for Him.

   9. This sweet inebriation and grace, however, do not pass quickly away, like
   the touch of the fire, for they are of longer continuance. The fire touches
   and passes, but the effects abide often; and sometimes the spiced wine
   continues for a considerable time, and its effects also; this is the sweet
   love of the soul, and continues occasionally a day or two, sometimes even
   many days together, though not always in the same degree of intensity,
   because it is not in the power of the soul to control it. Sometimes the
   soul, without any effort of its own, is conscious of a most sweet interior
   inebriation, and of the divine love burning within, as David says, My heart
   waxed hot within me, and in my meditation a fire shall burn. [209]

   10. The outpourings of this inebriation last sometimes as long as the
   inebriation itself. At other times there are no outpourings; and they are
   more or less intense when they occur, in proportion to the greater or less
   intensity of the inebriation itself. But the outpourings, or effects of the
   fire, generally last longer than the fire which caused them; indeed the fire
   leaves them behind in the soul, and they are more vehement than those which
   proceed from the inebriation, for sometimes this divine fire burns up and
   consumes the soul in love.

   11. As I have mentioned fermented wine, it will be well to touch briefly
   upon the difference between it, when it is old, and new wine; the difference
   between old wine and new wine is the same, and will furnish a little
   instruction for spiritual men. New wine has not settled on the lees, and is
   therefore fermenting; we cannot ascertain its quality or worth before it has
   settled, and the fermentation has ceased, for until then there is great risk
   of its corruption. The taste of it is rough and sharp, and an immoderate
   draught of it intoxicates. Old wine has settled on the lees, and ferments no
   more like new wine; the quality of it is easily ascertained and it is now
   very safe from corruption, for all fermentation which might have proved
   pernicious has entirely ceased. Well-fermented wine is very rarely spoiled,
   the taste of it is pleasant, and its strength is in its own substance, not
   in the taste, and drinking it produces health and a sound constitution.

   12. New lovers are compared to new wine; these are beginners in the service
   of God, because the fervor of their love manifests itself outwardly in the
   senses; because they have not settled on the lees of sense, frail and
   imperfect; and because they measure the strength of love by the sweetness of
   it, for it is sensible sweetness that ordinarily gives them their strength
   for good works, and it is by this they are influenced; we must, therefore,
   place no confidence in this love till the fermentation has subsided, with
   the coarse satisfaction of sense.

   13. For as these fervors and sensible warmth may incline men to good and
   perfect love, and serve as an excellent means to it, when the lees of
   imperfections are cleared; so also is it very easy at first, when sensible
   sweetness is fresh, for the wine of love to fail, and the sweetness of the
   new to vanish. New lovers are always anxious, sensibly tormented by their
   love; it is necessary for them to put some restraint upon themselves, for if
   they are very active in the strength of this wine, their natural powers will
   be ruined with these anxieties and fatigues of the new wine, which is rough
   and sharp, and not made sweet in the perfect fermentation, which then takes
   place when the anxieties of love are over, as I shall show immediately.

   14. The Wise Man employs the same illustration; saying, A new friend is as
   new wine; it shall grow old, and you shall drink it with pleasure. [210]
   Old lovers, therefore, who have been tried and proved in the service of the
   Bridegroom, are like old wine settled on the lees; they have no sensible
   emotions, nor outbursts of exterior zeal, but they taste the sweetness of
   the wine of love, now thoroughly fermented, not sweet to the senses as was
   that of the love of beginners, but rather settled within the soul in the
   substance and sweetness of the spirit, and in perfect good works. Such souls
   as these do not seek after sensible sweetness and fervors, neither do they
   wish for them, lest they should suffer from loathing and weariness; for he
   who gives the reins to his desires in matters of sense must of necessity
   suffer pain and loathing, both in mind and body.

   15. Old lovers, therefore, free from that spiritual sweetness which has its
   roots in the senses, suffer neither in sense nor spirit from the anxieties
   of love, and thus scarcely ever prove faithless to God, because they have
   risen above that which might be an occasion of falling, namely, the flesh.
   These now drink of the wine of love, which is not only fermented and free
   from the lees, but spiced also with the aromatic herbs of perfect virtues,
   which will not allow it to corrupt, as may happen to new wine.

   16. For this cause an old friend is of great price in the eyes of God:
   Forsake not an old friend, for the new will not be like to him. [211] It
   is through this wine of love, tried and spiced, that the divine Beloved
   produces in the soul that divine inebriation, under the influence of which
   it sends forth to God the sweet and delicious outpourings. The meaning of
   these three lines, therefore, is as follows: At the touch of the fire, by
   which You stir up the soul, and by the spiced wine with which You do so
   lovingly inebriate it, the soul pours forth the acts and movements of love
   which are Your work within it.

   NOTE

   SUCH, then, is the state of the blessed soul in the bed of flowers, where
   all these blessings, and many more, are granted it. The seat of that bed is
   the Son of God, and the hangings of it are the charity and love of the
   Bridegroom Himself. The soul now may say, with the bride, His left hand is
   under my head, [212] and we may therefore say, in truth, that such a soul
   is clothed in God, and bathed in the Divinity, and that, not as it were on
   the surface, but in the interior spirit, and filled with the divine delights
   in the abundance of the spiritual waters of life; for it experiences that
   which David says of those who have drawn near to God: They shall be
   inebriated with the plenty of Your house, and You shall make them drink of
   the torrent of Your pleasure, for with You is the fountain of life. [213]

   2. This fullness will be in the very being of the soul, seeing that its
   drink is nothing else but the torrent of delights, and that torrent the Holy
   Spirit, as it is written: And he showed me a river of living water, clear
   as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and the Lamb. [214] This
   water, being the very love itself of God, flows into the soul, so that it
   drinks of the torrent of love, which is the spirit of the Bridegroom infused
   into the soul in union. Thence the soul in the overflowing of its love sings
   the following stanza:
     _________________________________________________________________

   [206] Cant. 1:3

   [207] Ps. 118:32

   [208] Cant. 5:4

   [209] Ps. 38:4

   [210] Ecclus. 9:15

   [211] Ecclus. 9:14

   [212] Cant. 2:6

   [213] Ps. 35:9

   [214] Rev. 22:1
     _________________________________________________________________

STANZA XXVI


   In the inner cellar

   Of my Beloved have I drunk; and when I went forth

   Over all the plain

   I knew nothing,

   And lost the flock I followed before.

   HERE the soul speaks of that sovereign grace of God in taking it to Himself
   into the house of His love, which is the union, or transformation of love in
   God. It describes two effects proceeding therefrom: forgetfulness of, and
   detachment from, all the things of this world, and the mortification of its
   tastes and desires.


   In the inner cellar.

   2. In order to explain in any degree the meaning of this, I have need of the
   special help of the Holy Spirit to direct my hand and guide my pen. The
   cellar is the highest degree of love to which the soul may attain in this
   life, and is therefore said to be the inner. It follows from this that there
   are other cellars not so interior; that is, the degrees of love by which
   souls reach this, the last. These cellars are seven in number, and the soul
   has entered into them all when it has in perfection the seven gifts of the
   Holy Spirit, so far as it is possible for it. When the soul has the spirit
   of fear in perfection, it has in perfection also the spirit of love,
   inasmuch as this fear, the last of the seven gifts, is filial fear, and the
   perfect fear of a son proceeds from his perfect love of his father. Thus
   when the Holy Scripture speaks of one as having perfect charity, it says of
   him that he fears God. So the prophet Isaiah, announcing the perfections of
   Christ, says of Him, The spirit of the fear of the Lord shall replenish
   him. [215] Holy Simeon also is spoken of by the Evangelist as a just man
   full of fear, [216] and the same applies to many others.

   3. Many souls reach and enter the first cellar, each according to the
   perfection of its love, but the last and inmost cellar is entered by few in
   this world, because therein is wrought the perfect union with God, the union
   of the spiritual marriage, of which the soul is now speaking. What God
   communicates to the soul in this intimate union is utterly ineffable, beyond
   the reach of all possible words ” just as it is impossible to speak of God
   Himself so as to convey any idea of what He is ” because it is God Himself
   who communicates Himself to the soul now in the marvelous bliss of its
   transformation. In this state God and the soul are united, as the window is
   with the light, or coal with the fire, or the light of the stars with that
   of the sun, yet, however, not so essentially and completely as it will be in
   the life to come. The soul, therefore, to show what it received from the
   hands of God in the cellar of wine, says nothing else, and I do not believe
   that anything could be said but the words which follow:


   Of my Beloved have I drunk.

   4. As a draught diffuses itself through all the members and veins of the
   body, so this communication of God diffuses itself substantially in the
   whole soul, or rather, the soul is transformed in God. In this
   transformation the soul drinks of God in its very substance and its
   spiritual powers. In the understanding it drinks wisdom and knowledge, in
   the will the sweetest love, in the memory refreshment and delight in the
   thought and sense of its bliss. That the soul receives and drinks delight in
   its very substance, appears from the words of the bride in the Canticle: My
   soul melted as He spoke [217] ” that is, when the Bridegroom communicated
   Himself to the soul.

   5. That the understanding drinks wisdom is evident from the words of the
   bride longing and praying for the kiss of union: There You shall teach me,
   and I will give you a cup of spiced wine. [218] You shall teach me wisdom
   and knowledge in love, and I will give You a cup of spiced wine ” that is,
   my love mingled with Yours. The bride says that the will also drinks of
   love, saying: He brought me into the cellar of wine; He has ordered in me
   charity, [219] ” that is, He gave me His love, embracing me, to drink of
   love; or, to speak more clearly, He ordered in me His charity, tempering
   His charity and to the purpose making it mine. This is to give the soul to
   drink of the very love of its Beloved, which the Beloved infuses into it.

   6. There is a common saying that the will cannot love that of which the
   understanding has no knowledge. This, however, is to be understood in the
   order of nature, it being impossible, in a natural way, to love anything
   unless we first know what it is we love. But in a supernatural way God can
   certainly infuse love and increase it without infusing and increasing
   distinct knowledge, as is evident from the texts already quoted. Yes, many
   spiritual persons have experience of this; their love of God burns more and
   more, while their knowledge does not grow. Men may know little and love
   much, and on the other hand, know much and love but little.

   7. In general, those spiritual persons whose knowledge of God is not very
   great are usually very rich in all that belongs to the will, and infused
   faith suffices them for this knowledge, by means of which God infuses and
   increases charity in them and the acts thereof, which are to love Him more
   and more though knowledge is not increased. Thus the will may drink of love
   while the understanding drinks in no fresh knowledge. In the present
   instance, however, all the powers of the soul together, because of the union
   in the inner cellar, drink of the Beloved.

   8. As to the memory, it is clear that the soul drinks of the Beloved in it,
   because it is enlightened with the light of the understanding in remembering
   the blessings it possesses and enjoys in union with the Beloved.


   And when I went forth.

   9. That is, after this grace: the divine draught having so deified the soul,
   exalted it, and inebriated it in God. Though the soul is always in the high
   estate of marriage ever since God has placed it there, nevertheless actual
   union in all its powers is not continuous, though the substantial union is.
   In this substantial union the powers of the soul are most frequently in
   union, and drink of His cellar, the understanding by knowledge, the will by
   love, etc. We are not, therefore, to suppose that the soul, when saying that
   it went out, has ceased from its substantial or essential union with God,
   but only from the union of its faculties, which is not, and cannot be,
   permanent in this life; it is from this union, then, it went forth when it
   wandered over all the plain ” that is, through the whole breadth of the
   world.


   I knew nothing.

   10. This draught of Gods most deep wisdom makes the soul forget all the
   things of this world, and consider all its previous knowledge, and the
   knowledge of the whole world besides, as pure ignorance in comparison with
   this knowledge.

   11. For a clearer understanding of this, we must remember that the most
   regular cause of the souls ignoring the things of the world, when it has
   ascended to this high state, is that it is informed by a supernatural
   knowledge, in the presence of which all natural and worldly knowledge is
   ignorance rather than knowledge. For the soul in possession of this
   knowledge, which is most profound, learns from it that all other knowledge
   not included in this knowledge is not knowledge, but ignorance, and
   worthless. We have this truth in the words of the Apostle when he said that
   the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. [220]

   12. This is the reason why the soul says it knows nothing, now that it has
   drunk of the divine wisdom. The truth is that the wisdom of men and of the
   whole world is mere ignorance, and not deserving any attention, but it is a
   truth that can be learned only in that truth of the presence of God in the
   soul communicating to it His wisdom and making it strong by this draught of
   love that it may see it distinctly. This is taught us by Solomon, saying:
   The vision that the man spoke, with whom God is, and who being strengthened
   by God abiding with him, said: I am the most foolish of men, and the wisdom
   of men is not with me. [221]

   13. When the soul is raised to this high wisdom of God, the wisdom of man is
   in its eyes the lowest ignorance: all natural science and the works of God,
   if accompanied by ignorance of Him, are as ignorance; for where He is not
   known, there nothing is known. The deep things of God are foolishness to
   men. [222] Thus the divinely wise and the worldly wise are fools in the
   estimation of each other; for the latter cannot understand the wisdom and
   science of God, nor the former those of the world, for the wisdom of the
   world is ignorance in comparison with the wisdom of God; and the wisdom of
   God is ignorance with respect to that of the world.

   14. Moreover, this deification and elevation of the spirit in God, whereby
   the soul is, as it were, rapt and absorbed in love, one with God, suffer it
   not to dwell upon any worldly matter. The soul is now detached, not only
   from all outward things, but even from itself: it is, as it were, undone,
   assumed by, and dissolved in, love ” that is, it passes out of itself into
   the Beloved. Thus the bride, in the Canticle, after speaking of her own
   transformation by love into the Beloved, expresses her state of ignorance by
   the words I knew not. [223] The soul is now, in a certain sense, like Adam
   in paradise, who knew no evil. It is so innocent that it sees no evil;
   neither does it consider anything to be amiss. It will hear much that is
   evil, and will see it with its eyes, and yet it shall not be able to
   understand it, because it has no evil habits whereby to judge of it. God has
   rooted out of it those imperfect habits and that ignorance resulting from
   the evil of sin, by the perfect habit of true wisdom. Thus, also, the soul
   knows nothing on this subject.

   15. Such a soul will scarcely intermeddle with the affairs of others,
   because it forgets even its own; for the work of the Spirit of God in the
   soul in which He dwells is to incline it to ignore those things which do not
   concern it, especially such as do not minister to edification. The Spirit of
   God abides within the soul to withdraw it from outward things rather than to
   lead it among them; and thus the soul knows nothing as it knew it formerly.
   We are not, however, to suppose that it loses the habits of knowledge
   previously acquired, for those habits are improved by the more perfect habit
   of supernatural knowledge infused, though these habits are not so powerful
   as to necessitate knowledge through them, and yet there is no reason why
   they should not do so occasionally.

   16. In this union of the divine wisdom, these habits are united with the
   higher wisdom of other knowledge, as a little light with another which is
   great; it is the great light that shines, overwhelming the less, yet the
   latter is not therefore lost, but rather perfected, though it is not the
   light which shines pre-eminently. Thus, I imagine, will it be in heaven; the
   acquired habits of knowledge in the just will not be destroyed, though they
   will be of no great importance there, seeing that the just will know more in
   the divine wisdom than by the habits acquired on earth.

   17. But the particular notions and forms of things, acts of the imagination,
   and every other apprehension having form and figure are all lost and ignored
   in this absorbing love, and this for two reasons. First, the soul cannot
   actually attend to anything of the kind, because it is actually absorbed by
   this draught of love. Secondly, and this is the principal reason, its
   transformation in God so conforms it to His purity and simplicity ” for
   there is no form or imaginary figure in Him ” as to render it pure, cleansed
   and empty of all the forms and figures it entertained before, being now
   purified and enlightened in simple contemplation. All spots and stains in
   the glass become invisible when the sun shines upon it, but they appear
   again as soon as the light of the sun is withheld.

   18. So is it with the soul; while the effects of this act of love continue,
   this ignorance continues also, so that it cannot observe anything in
   particular until these effects have ceased. Love has set the soul on fire
   and transmuted it into love, has annihilated it and destroyed it as to all
   that is not love, according to the words of David: My heart has been
   inflamed, and my reins have been changed; and I am brought to nothing, and I
   knew not. [224] The changing of the reins, because the heart is inflamed,
   is the changing of the soul, in all its desires and actions, in God, into a
   new manner of life, the utter undoing and annihilation of the old man, and
   therefore the prophet said that he was brought to nothing and knew not.

   19. These are the two effects of drinking the wine of the cellar of God; not
   only is all previous knowledge brought to nothing and made to vanish, but
   the old life also with its imperfections is destroyed, and into the new man
   renewed; this is the second of the two effects described in the words that
   follow:


   And lost the flock I followed before.

   20. Until the soul reaches the state of perfection, however spiritual it may
   be, there always remains a troop of desires, likings, and other
   imperfections, sometimes natural, sometimes spiritual, after which it runs,
   and which it tries to feed while following and satisfying them. With regard
   to the understanding, there are certain imperfections of the desire of
   knowledge. With regard to the will, certain likings and peculiar desires, at
   times in temporal things, as the wish to possess certain trifles, and
   attachment to some things more than to others, certain prejudices,
   considerations, and punctilios, with other vanities, still savoring of the
   world: and again in natural things, such as eating and drinking, the
   preference of one kind of food over another, and the choice of the best: at
   another time, in spiritual things, such as seeking for sweetness, and other
   follies of spiritual persons not yet perfect, too numerous to recount here.
   As to the memory, there are many inconsistencies, anxieties, unseemly
   reminiscences, which drag the soul captive after them.

   21. The four passions of the soul also involve it in many useless hopes,
   joys, griefs, and fears, after which it runs. As to this flock, some men are
   more influenced by it than others; they run after and follow it, until they
   enter the inner cellar, where they lose it altogether, being then
   transformed in love. In that cellar the flock of imperfections is easily
   destroyed, as rust and mold on metal in the fire. Then the soul feels itself
   free from the pettiness of self-likings and the vanities after which it ran
   before, and may well say, I have lost the flock which I followed before.

   NOTE

   GOD communicates Himself to the soul in this interior union with a love so
   intense that the love of a mother, who so tenderly caresses her child, the
   love of a brother, or the affection of a friend bear no likeness to it, for
   so great is the tenderness, and so deep is the love with which the Infinite
   Father comforts and exalts the humble and loving soul. O wonders worthy of
   all awe and reverence! He humbles Himself in reality before that soul that
   He may exalt it, as if He were its servant, and the soul His lord. He is as
   anxious to comfort it as if He were a slave, and the soul God. So great is
   the humility and tenderness of God. In this communion of love He renders in
   a certain way those services to the soul which He says in the Gospel He will
   perform for the elect in heaven. Amen, I say to you, that He will gird
   Himself and make them sit down to meat, and passing will minister to
   them. [225]

   2. This very service He renders now to the soul, comforting and cherishing
   it, as a mother her child whom she nurtures in her bosom. And the soul
   recognizes herein the truth of the words of Isaiah, You shall be carried at
   the breasts, and upon the knees they shall caress you. [226] What must the
   feelings of the soul be amid these sovereign graces? How it will melt away
   in love, beholding the bosom of God opened for it with such overflowing
   love. When the soul perceives itself in the midst of these delights, it
   surrenders itself wholly to God, gives to Him the breasts of its own will
   and love, and under the influence thereof addresses the Beloved in the words
   of the bride in the Canticle, saying: I to my Beloved, and His turning is
   towards me. Come, my Beloved, let us go forth into the field, let us abide
   in the villages. Let us rise early to the vineyards, let us see if the
   vineyard flourish, if the flowers are ready to bring forth fruits, if the
   pomegranates flourish; there will I give You my breasts [227] ” that is,
   I will employ all the joy and strength of my will in the service of Your
   love. This mutual surrender in this union of the soul and God is the
   subject of the stanza which follows:
     _________________________________________________________________

   [215] Isa. 11:3

   [216] Luke 2:25. Justus et timoratus.

   [217] Cant. 5:6

   [218] Cant. 8:2

   [219] Cant. 2:4

   [220] 1 Cor. 3:19

   [221] Prov. 30:1, 2

   [222] 1 Cor. 2:14

   [223] Cant. 6:11

   [224] Ps. 72:21, 22

   [225] Luke 12:37

   [226] Isa. 66:12

   [227] Cant. 7:10-12
     _________________________________________________________________

STANZA XXVII


   There He gave me His breasts,

   There He taught me the science full of sweetness.

   And there I gave to Him

   Myself without reserve;

   There I promised to be His bride.

   HERE the soul speaks of the two contracting parties in this spiritual
   betrothal, itself and God. In the inner cellar of love they both met
   together, God giving to the soul the breasts of His love freely, whereby He
   instructs it in His mysteries and wisdom, and the soul also actually
   surrendering itself, making no reservation whatever either in its own favor
   or in that of others, promising to be His for ever.


   There He gave me His breasts.

   2. To give the breast to another is to love and cherish him and communicate
   ones secrets to him as a friend. The soul says here that God gave it His
   breasts ” that is, He gave it His love and communicated His secrets to it.
   It is thus that God deals with the soul in this state, and more, too, as it
   appears from the words that follow:


   There He taught me the science full of sweetness.

   3. This science is mystical theology, which is the secret science of God,
   and which spiritual men call contemplation. It is most full of sweetness
   because it is knowledge by love, love is the master of it, and it is love
   that renders it all so sweet. Inasmuch as this science and knowledge are
   communicated to the soul in that love with which God communicates Himself,
   it is sweet to the understanding, because knowledge belongs to it, and sweet
   to the will, because it comes by love which belongs to the will.


   There I gave to Him myself without reserve

   4. The soul in this sweet draught of God, surrenders itself wholly to Him
   most willingly and with great sweetness; it desires to be wholly His, and
   never to retain anything which is unbecoming His Majesty. God is the author
   of this union, and of the purity and perfection requisite for it; and as the
   transformation of the soul in Himself makes it His, He empties it of all
   that is alien to Himself. Thus it comes to pass that, not in will only, but
   in act as well, the whole soul is entirely given to God without any reserve
   whatever, as God has given Himself freely to it. The will of God and of the
   soul are both satisfied, each given up to the other, in mutual delight, so
   that neither fails the other in the faith and constancy of the betrothal;
   therefore the soul says:


   There I promised to be His bride.

   5. As a bride does not give her love to another, and as all her thoughts and
   actions are directed to her bridegroom only, so the soul now has no
   affections of the will, no acts of the understanding, neither object nor
   occupation of any kind which it does not wholly refer to God, together with
   all its desires. The soul is, as it were, absorbed in God, and even its
   first movements have nothing in them ” so far as it can comprehend them ”
   which is at variance with the will of God. The first movements of an
   imperfect soul in general are, at least, inclined to evil, in the
   understanding, the memory, the will, the desires and imperfections; but
   those of the soul which has attained to the spiritual state of which I am
   speaking are ordinarily directed to God, because of the great help and
   courage it derives from Him, and its perfect conversion to goodness. This is
   set forth with great clearness by David, when he says: Shall not my soul be
   subject to God? For from Him is my salvation. For He is my God and my
   Savior; He is my protector, I shall be moved no more. [228] He is my
   protector means that the soul, being now received under the protection of
   God and united to Him, is no longer subject to any movements contrary to
   God.

   6. It is quite clear from this that the soul which has attained the
   spiritual betrothal knows nothing else but the love of the Bridegroom and
   the delights thereof, because it has arrived at perfection, the form and
   substance of which is love, according to St. Paul. [229] The more a soul
   loves, the more perfect it is in its love, and hence it follows that the
   soul which is already perfect is, if we may say so, all love, all its
   actions are love, all its energies and strength are occupied in love. It
   gives up all it has, like the wise merchant, [230] for this treasure of love
   which it finds hidden in God, and which is so precious in His sight, and the
   Beloved cares for nothing else but love; the soul, therefore, anxious to
   please Him perfectly, occupies itself wholly in pure love for God, not only
   because love does so occupy it, but also because the love wherein it is
   united influences it towards love of God in and through all things. As the
   bee draws honey from all plants, and makes use of them only for that end, so
   the soul most easily draws the sweetness of love from all that happens to
   it; makes all things subserve it towards loving God, whether they are sweet
   or bitter; and being animated and protected by love, has no sense, feeling,
   or knowledge, because, as I have said, it knows nothing but love, and in all
   its occupations, its joy is its love of God. This is explained by the
   following stanza.

   NOTE

   I HAVE said that God is pleased with nothing but love; but before I explain
   this, it will be as well to set forth the grounds on which the assertion
   rests. All our works, and all our labors, however grand they may be, are
   nothing in the sight of God, for we can give Him nothing, neither can we by
   them fulfill His desire, which is the growth of our soul. As to Himself He
   desires nothing of this, for He has need of nothing, and so, if He is
   pleased with anything it is with the growth of the soul; and as there is no
   way in which the soul can grow but in becoming in a manner equal to Him, for
   this reason He is only pleased with our love. It is the property of love to
   place him who loves on an equality with the object of his love. Hence the
   soul, because of its perfect love, is called the bride of the Son of God,
   which signifies equality with Him. In this equality and friendship all
   things are common, as the Bridegroom Himself said to His disciples: I have
   called you friends, because all things, whatsoever I have heard of my
   Father, I have made known to you. [231]
     _________________________________________________________________

   [228] Ps. 61:2, 3

   [229] Col. 3:14

   [230] Matt. 13:44

   [231] John 15:15
     _________________________________________________________________

STANZA XXVIII


   My soul is occupied,

   And all my substance in His service;

   Now I guard no flock,

   Nor have I any other employment:

   My sole occupation is love.

   THE soul, or rather the bride having given herself wholly to the Bridegroom
   without any reserve whatever, now recounts to the Beloved how she fulfills
   her task. My soul and body, she says, all my abilities and all my
   capacities, are occupied not with other matters, but with those pertaining
   to the service of the Bridegroom. She is therefore not seeking her own
   proper satisfaction, nor the gratification of her own inclinations, neither
   does she occupy herself in anything whatever which is alien to God; yes,
   even her communion with God Himself is nothing else but acts of love,
   inasmuch as she has changed her former mode of conversing with Him into
   loving.


   My soul is occupied.

   2. This refers to the souls surrender of itself to the Beloved in this
   union of love, wherein it devotes itself, with all its faculties,
   understanding, will, and memory, to His service. The understanding is
   occupied in considering what most tends to His service, in order that it
   might be accomplished; the will in loving all that is pleasing to God, and
   in desiring Him in all things; the memory in recalling what ministers to
   Him, and what may be more pleasing to Him.


   And all my substance in His service.

   3. By substance here is meant all that relates to the sensual part of the
   soul, which includes the body, with all its powers, interior and exterior,
   together with all its natural capacities ” that is, the four passions, the
   natural desires, and the whole substance of the soul, all of which is
   employed in the service of the Beloved, as well as the rational and
   spiritual part, as I explained in the previous section. As to the body, that
   is now ordered according to God in all its interior and exterior senses, all
   the acts of which are directed to God; the four passions of the soul are
   also under control in Him; for the souls joy, hope, fear, and grief are
   conversant with God only; all its appetites, and all its anxieties also, are
   directed to Him only.

   4. The whole substance of the soul is now so occupied with God, so intent
   upon Him, that its very first movements, even inadvertently, have God for
   their object and their end. The understanding, memory, and will tend
   directly to God; the affections, senses, desires and longings, hope and joy,
   the whole substance of the soul, rise instantly towards God, though the soul
   is making no conscious efforts in that direction. Such a soul is very often
   doing the work of God, intent upon Him and the things of God, without
   thinking or reflecting on what it is doing for Him. The constant and
   habitual practice of this has deprived it of all conscious reflection, and
   even of that fervor which it usually had when it began to act. The whole
   substance of the soul being thus occupied, what follows cannot be but true
   also.


   Now I guard no flock.

   5. I do not now go after my likings and desires; for having fixed them upon
   God, I no longer feed or guard them. The soul not only does not guard them
   now, but has no other occupation than to wait upon God.


   Nor have I any other employment.

   6. Before the soul succeeded in effecting this gift and surrender of itself,
   and of all that belongs to it, to the Beloved, it was entangled in many
   unprofitable occupations, by which it sought to please itself and others,
   and it may be said that its occupations of this kind were as many as its
   habits of imperfection.

   7. To these habits belong that of speaking, thinking, and the doing of
   things that are useless; and likewise, the not making use of these things
   according to the requirements of the souls perfection; other desires also
   the soul may have, with which it ministers to the desires of others, to
   which may be referred display, compliments, flattery, human respect, aiming
   at being well thought of, and the giving pleasure to people, and other
   useless actions, by which it labored to content them, wasting its efforts
   herein, and finally all its strength. All this is over, says the soul here,
   for all its words, thoughts, and works are directed to God, and, conversant
   with Him, freed from their previous imperfections. It is as if it said: I
   follow no longer either my own or other mens likings, neither do I occupy
   or entertain myself with useless pastimes, or the things of this world.


   My sole occupation is love.

   8. All my occupation now is the practice of the love of God, all the powers
   of soul and body, memory, understanding, and will, interior and exterior
   senses, the desires of spirit and of sense, all work in and by love. All I
   do is done in love; all I suffer, I suffer in the sweetness of love. This
   is the meaning of David when he said, I will keep my strength to You.
   [232]

   9. When the soul has arrived at this state all the acts of its spiritual and
   sensual nature, whether active or passive, and of whatever kind they may be,
   always occasion an increase of love and delight in God: even the act of
   prayer and communion with God, which was once carried on by reflections and
   diverse other methods, is now wholly an act of love. So much so is this the
   case that the soul may always say, whether occupied with temporal or
   spiritual things, My sole occupation is love. Happy life! happy state! and
   happy the soul which has attained to it! where all is the very substance of
   love, the joyous delights of the betrothal, when it may truly say to the
   Beloved with the bride in the Canticle, The new and the old, my Beloved,
   have I kept for You [233] All that is bitter and painful I keep for Your
   sake, all that is sweet and pleasant I keep for You. The meaning of the
   words, for my purpose, is that the soul, in the state of spiritual
   betrothal, is for the most part living in the union of love ” that is, the
   will is habitually waiting lovingly on God.

   NOTE

   IN truth the soul is now lost to all things, and gained only to love, and
   the mind is no longer occupied with anything else. It is, therefore,
   deficient in what concerns the active life, and other exterior duties, that
   it may apply in earnest to the one thing which the Bridegroom has pronounced
   necessary; [234] and that is waiting upon God, and the continuous practice
   of His love. So precious is this in the eyes of God that He rebuked Martha
   because she would withdraw Mary from His feet to occupy her actively in the
   service of our Lord. Martha thought that she was doing everything herself,
   and that Mary at the feet of Christ was doing nothing. But it was far
   otherwise: for there is nothing better or more necessary than love. Thus, in
   the Canticle, the Bridegroom protects the bride, adjuring the daughters of
   Jerusalem ” that is, all created things ” not to disturb her spiritual sleep
   of love, nor to waken her, nor to let her open her eyes to anything till she
   pleased. I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, that you do not stir up,
   nor awake my beloved till she please. [235]

   2. Observe, however, that if the soul has not reached the state of unitive
   love, it is necessary for it to make acts of love, as well in the active as
   in the contemplative life. But when it has reached it, it is not requisite
   it should occupy itself in other and exterior duties ” unless they are
   matters of obligation ” which might hinder, were it but for a moment, the
   life of love in God, though they may minister greatly to His service;
   because an instant of pure love is more precious in the eyes of God and the
   soul, and more profitable to the Church, than all other good works together,
   though it may seem as if nothing were done. Thus, Mary Magdalene, though her
   preaching was most edifying, and might have been still more so afterwards,
   out of the great desire she had to please God and benefit the Church, hid
   herself, nevertheless, in the desert thirty years, that she might surrender
   herself entirely to love; for she considered that she would gain more in
   that way, because an instant of pure love is so much more profitable and
   important to the Church.

   3. When the soul, then, in any degree possesses the spirit of solitary love,
   we must not interfere with it. We should inflict a grievous wrong upon it,
   and upon the Church also, if we were to occupy it, were it only for a
   moment, in exterior or active duties, however important they might be. When
   God Himself adjures all not to waken it from its love, who shall venture to
   do so, and be blameless? In a word, it is for this love that we are all
   created. Let those men of zeal, who think by their preaching and exterior
   works to convert the world, consider that they would be much more edifying
   to the Church, and more pleasing to God ” setting aside the good example
   they would give ” if they would spend at least one half their time in
   prayer, even though they may have not attained to the state of unitive love.
   Certainly they would do more, and with less trouble, by one single good work
   than by a thousand: because of the merit of their prayer, and the spiritual
   strength it supplies. To act otherwise is to beat the air, to do little more
   than nothing, sometimes nothing and occasionally even mischief; for God may
   give up such persons to vanity, so that they may seem to have done
   something, when in reality their outward occupations bear no fruit; for it
   is quite certain that good works cannot be done but in the power of God. O
   how much might be written on this subject! this, however, is not the place
   for it.

   4. I have said this to explain the stanza that follows, in which the soul
   replies to those who call in question its holy tranquillity, who will have
   it wholly occupied with outward duties, that its light may shine before the
   world: these persons have no conception of the fibers and the unseen root
   whence the sap is drawn, and which nourish the fruit.
     _________________________________________________________________

   [232] Ps. 58:10

   [233] Cant. 7:13

   [234] Luke 10:42

   [235] Cant. 3:5
     _________________________________________________________________

STANZA XXIX


   If then on the common land

   I am no longer seen or found,

   You will say that I am lost;

   That, being enamored,

   I lost myself; and yet was found.

   THE soul replies here to a tacit reproach. Worldly people are in the habit
   of censuring those who give themselves up in earnest to God, regarding them
   as extravagant, in their withdrawal from the world, and in their manner of
   life. They say also of them that they are useless for all matters of
   importance, and lost to everything the world prizes and respects! This
   reproach the soul meets in the best way; boldly and courageously despising
   it with everything else that the world can lay to its charge. Having
   attained to a living love of God, it makes little account of all this; and
   that is not all: it confesses it itself in this stanza, and boasts that it
   has committed that folly, and that it is lost to the world and to itself for
   the Beloved.

   2. That which the soul is saying here, addressing itself to the world, is in
   substance this: If you see me no longer occupied with the subjects that
   engrossed me once, with the other pastimes of the world, say and believe
   that I am lost to them, and a stranger to them, yes, that I am lost of my
   own choice, seeking my Beloved whom I so greatly love. But that they may
   see that the souls loss is gain, and not consider it folly and delusion, it
   adds that its loss was gain, and that it therefore lost itself deliberately.


   If then on the common I am no longer seen or found.

   3. The common is a public place where people assemble for recreation, and
   where shepherds feed their flocks. By the common here is meant the world in
   general, where men amuse themselves and feed the herd of their desires. The
   soul says to the worldly-minded: If you see me no more where I used to be
   before I gave myself up wholly to God, look upon me as lost, and say so:
   the soul rejoices in that and would have men so speak of it.


   Say that I am lost.

   4. He who loves is not ashamed before men of what he does for God, neither
   does he hide it through shame though the whole world should condemn it. He
   who shall be ashamed to confess the Son of God before men, neglecting to do
   His work, the Son of God also will be ashamed to acknowledge him before His
   Father. He that shall deny Me before men, I will also deny him before My
   Father Who is in heaven. [236] The soul, therefore, in the courage of its
   love, glories in what ministers to the honor of the Beloved, in that it has
   done anything for Him and is lost to the things of the world.

   5. But few spiritual persons arrive at this perfect courage and resolution
   in their conduct. For though some attempt to practice it, and some even
   think themselves proficient therein, they never entirely lose themselves on
   certain points connected with the world or self, so as to be perfectly
   detached for the sake of Christ, despising appearances and the opinion of
   the world. These can never answer, Say that I am lost, because they are
   not lost to themselves, and are still ashamed to confess Christ before men
   through human respect; these do not therefore really live in Christ.


   That being enamored,

   That is, practicing virtues for the love of God,


   I lost myself; and yet was found.

   6. The soul remembers well the words of the Bridegroom in the Gospel: No
   man can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the
   other, [237] and therefore, in order not to lose God, loses all that is not
   God, that is, all created things, even itself, being lost to all things for
   the love of Him. He who truly loves makes a shipwreck of himself in all else
   that he may gain the more in the object of his love. Thus the soul says that
   it has lost itself ” that is, deliberately, of set purpose.

   7. This loss occurs in two ways. The soul loses itself, making no account
   whatever of itself, but of the Beloved, resigning itself freely into His
   hands without any selfish views, losing itself deliberately, and seeking
   nothing for itself. Secondly, it loses itself in all things, making no
   account of anything save that which concerns the Beloved. This is to lose
   oneself ” that is, to be willing that others should have all things. Such is
   he that loves God; he seeks neither gain nor reward, but only to lose all,
   even himself, according to Gods will; this is what such a one counts gain.
   This is real gain, for the Apostle says, to die is gain [238] ” that is,
   to die for Christ is my gain and profit spiritually. This is why the soul
   says that it was found; for he who does not know how to lose, does not
   find, but rather loses himself, as our Savior teaches us in the Gospel,
   saying, He that will save his life shall lose it; and he that shall lose
   his life for My sake shall find it. [239]

   8. But if we wish to know the deeper spiritual meaning of this line, and its
   peculiar fitness here, it is as follows: When a soul has advanced so far on
   the spiritual road as to be lost to all the natural methods of communing
   with God; when it seeks Him no longer by meditation, images, impressions,
   nor by any other created ways, or representations of sense, but only by
   rising above them all, in the joyful communion with Him by faith and love,
   then it may be said to have found God of a truth, because it has truly lost
   itself as to all that is not God, and also as to its own self.

   NOTE

   THE soul being thus gained, all its works are gain, for all its powers are
   exerted in the spiritual intercourse of most sweet interior love with the
   Beloved. The interior communications between God and the soul are now so
   delicious, so full of sweetness, that no mortal tongue can describe them,
   nor human understanding comprehend them. As a bride on the day of her
   betrothal attends to nothing but to the joyous festival of her love, and
   brings forth all her jewels and ornaments for the pleasure of the
   bridegroom, and as he too in the same way exhibits his own magnificence and
   riches for the pleasure of his bride, so is it in the spiritual betrothal
   where the soul feels that which the bride says in the Canticle, I to my
   Beloved and my Beloved to me. [240] The virtues and graces of the
   bride-soul, the grandeur and magnificence of the Bridegroom, the Son of God,
   come forth into the light, for the celebration of the bridal feast,
   communicating each to the other the goods and joys with the wine of sweet
   love in the Holy Spirit. The present stanza, addressed to the Bridegroom by
   the soul, has this for its subject.
     _________________________________________________________________

   [236] Matt. 10:33

   [237] Matt. 6:24

   [238] Phil. 1:21

   [239] Matt. 16:25

   [240] Cant. 6:2
     _________________________________________________________________

STANZA XXX


   Of emeralds, and of flowers

   In the early morning gathered,

   We will make the garlands,

   Flowering in Your love,

   And bound together with one hair of my head.

   THE bride now turns to the Bridegroom and addresses Him in the intercourse
   and comfort of love; the subject of the stanza being the solace and delight
   which the bride-soul and the Son of God find in the possession of the
   virtues and gifts of each other, and in the exercise thereof, both rejoicing
   in their mutual love. Thus the soul, addressing the Beloved, says that they
   will make garlands rich in graces and acquired virtues, obtained at the
   fitting and convenient season, beautiful and lovely in the love He bears the
   soul, and kept together by the love which it itself has for Him. This
   rejoicing in virtue is what is meant by making garlands, for the soul and
   God rejoice together in these virtues bound up as flowers in a garland, in
   the common love which each bears the other.


   Of emeralds, and of flowers.

   2. The flowers are the virtues of the soul; the emeralds are the gifts it
   has received from God. Then of these flowers and emeralds


   In the early morning gathered.

   3. That is, acquired in youth, which is the early morning of life. They are
   said to be gathered because the virtues which we acquire in youth are most
   pleasing to God; because youth is the season when our vices most resist the
   acquisition of them, and when our natural inclinations are most prone to
   lose them. Those virtues also are more perfect which we acquire in early
   youth. This time of our life is the early morning; for as the freshness of
   the spring morning is more agreeable than any other part of the day, so also
   are the virtues acquired in our youth more pleasing in the sight of God.

   4. By the fresh morning we may understand those acts of love by which we
   acquire virtue, and which are more pleasing to God than the fresh morning is
   to the sons of men; good works also, wrought in the season of spiritual
   dryness and hardness; this is the freshness of the winter morning, and what
   we then do for God in dryness of spirit is most precious in His eyes. Then
   it is that we acquire virtues and graces abundantly; and what we then
   acquire with toil and labor is for the most part better, more perfect and
   lasting than what we acquire in comfort and spiritual sweetness; for virtue
   sends forth its roots in the season of dryness, toil, and trial: as it is
   written, Virtue is made perfect in infirmity. [241] It is with a view to
   show forth the excellence of these virtues, of which the garland is wrought
   for the Beloved, that the soul says of them that they have been gathered in
   the early morning; because it is these flowers alone, with the emeralds of
   virtue, the choice and perfect graces, and not the imperfect, which are
   pleasing to the Beloved, and so the bride says:


   We will make the garlands.

   5. All the virtues and graces which the soul, and God in it, acquire are as
   a garland of diverse flowers with which the soul is marvelously adorned as
   with a vesture of rich embroidery. As material flowers are gathered, and
   then formed into a garland, so the spiritual flowers of virtues and graces
   are acquired and set in order in the soul: and when the acquisition is
   complete, the garland of perfection is complete also. The soul and the
   Bridegroom rejoice in it, both beautiful, adorned with the garland, as in
   the state of perfection.

   6. These are the garlands which the soul says they will make. That is, it
   will wreathe itself with this variety of flowers, with the emeralds of
   virtues and perfect gifts, that it may present itself worthily before the
   face of the King, and be on an equality with Him, sitting as a queen on His
   right hand; for it has merited this by its beauty. Thus David says,
   addressing himself to Christ: The queen stood on Your right hand in
   vestments of gold, girt with variety. [242] That is, at His right hand,
   clad in perfect love, girt with the variety of graces and perfect virtues.

   7. The soul does not say, I will make garlands, nor You will make
   them, but, We will make them, not separately, but both together; because
   the soul cannot practice virtues alone, nor acquire them alone, without the
   help of God; neither does God alone create virtue in the soul without the
   souls concurrence. Though it is true, as the Apostle says, that every best
   gift, and every perfect gift, is from above, descending from the Father of
   lights, [243] still they enter into no soul without that souls concurrence
   and consent. Thus the bride in the Canticle says to the Bridegroom; Draw
   me; we will run after you. [244] Every inclination to good comes from God
   alone, as we learn here; but as to running, that is, good works, they
   proceed from God and the soul together, and it is therefore written, We
   will run ” that is, both together, but not God nor the soul alone.

   8. These words may also be fittingly applied to Christ and His Church,
   which, as His bride, says to Him, We will make the garlands. In this
   application of the words the garlands are the holy souls born to Christ in
   the Church. Every such soul is by itself a garland adorned with the flowers
   of virtues and graces, and all of them together a garland for the head of
   Christ the Bridegroom.

   9. We may also understand by these beautiful garlands the crowns formed by
   Christ and the Church, of which there are three kinds. The first is formed
   of the beauty and white flowers of the virgins, each one with her virginal
   crown, and forming altogether one crown for the head of the Bridegroom
   Christ. The second, of the brilliant flowers of the holy doctors, each with
   his crown of doctor, and all together forming one crown above that of the
   virgins on the head of Christ. The third is composed of the purple flowers
   of the martyrs, each with his own crown of martyrdom, and all united into
   one, perfecting that on the head of Christ. Adorned with these garlands He
   will be so beautiful, and so lovely to behold, that heaven itself will
   repeat the words of the bride in the Canticle, saying: Go forth, you
   daughters of Zion, and see king Solomon in the diadem with which his mother
   crowned him in the day of his betrothal, and in the day of the joy of his
   heart. [245] The soul then says we will make garlands.


   Flowering in Your love.

   10. The flowering of good works and virtues is the grace and power which
   they derive from the love of God, without which they not only flower not,
   but even become dry, and worthless in the eyes of God, though they may be
   humanly perfect. But if He gives His grace and love they flourish in His
   love.


   And bound together with one hair of my head.

   11. The hair is the will of the soul, and the love it bears the Beloved.
   This love performs the function of the thread that keeps the garland
   together. For as a thread binds the flowers of a garland, so loves knits
   together and sustains virtues in the soul. Charity ” that is, love ” says
   the Apostle, is the bond of perfection. [246] Love, in the same way, binds
   the virtues and supernatural gifts together, so that when love fails by our
   departure from God, all our virtue perishes also, just as the flowers drop
   from the garland when the thread that bound them together is broken. It is
   not enough for Gods gift of virtues that He should love us, but we too must
   love Him in order to receive them, and preserve them.

   12. The soul speaks of one hair, not of many, to show that the will by
   itself is fixed on God, detached from all other hairs; that is, from strange
   love. This points out the great price and worth of these garlands of
   virtues; for when love is single, firmly fixed on God, as here described,
   the virtues also are entire, perfect, and flowering in the love of God; for
   the love He bears the soul is beyond all price, and the soul also knows it
   well.

   13. Were I to attempt a description of the beauty of that binding of the
   flowers and emeralds together, or of the strength and majesty which their
   harmonious arrangement furnishes to the soul, or the beauty and grace of its
   embroidered vesture, expressions and words would fail me; for if God says of
   the evil spirit, His body is like molten shields, shut close up with scales
   pressing upon one another, one is joined to another, and not so much as any
   air can come between them; [247] if the evil spirit is so strong, clad in
   malice thus compacted together ” for the scales that cover his body like
   molten shields are malice, and malice is in itself but weakness ” what must
   be the strength of the soul that is clothed in virtues so compacted and
   united together that no impurity or imperfection can penetrate between them;
   each virtue severally adding strength to strength, beauty to beauty, wealth
   to wealth, and to majesty, dominion and grandeur?

   14. What a marvelous vision will be that of the bride-soul, when it shall
   sit on the right hand of the Bridegroom-King, crowned with graces! How
   beautiful are your steps in shoes, O princes daughter! [248] The soul is
   called a princes daughter because of the power it has; and if the beauty of
   the steps in shoes is great, what must be that of the whole vesture? Not
   only is the beauty of the soul crowned with admirable flowers, but its
   strength also, flowing from the harmonious order of the flowers, intertwined
   with the emeralds of its innumerable graces, is terrible: Terrible as the
   army of a camp set in array. [249] For, as these virtues and gifts of God
   refresh the soul with their spiritual perfume, so also, when united in it,
   do they, out of their substance, minister strength. Thus, in the Canticle,
   when the bride was weak, languishing with love ” because she had not been
   able to bind together the flowers and the emeralds with the hair of her love
   ” and anxious to strengthen herself by that union of them, cries out: Stay
   me with flowers, compass me about with apples; because I languish with
   love. [250] The flowers are the virtues, and the apples are the other
   graces.

   NOTE

   I BELIEVE I have now shown how the intertwining of the garlands and their
   lasting presence in the soul explain the divine union of love which now
   exists between the soul and God. The Bridegroom, as He says Himself, is the
   flower of the field and the lily of the valleys, [251] and the souls love
   is the hair that unites to itself this flower of flowers. Love is the most
   precious of all things, because it is the bond of perfection, as the
   Apostle says, [252] and perfection is union with God. The soul is, as it
   were, a sheaf of garlands, for it is the subject of this glory, no longer
   what it was before, but the very perfect flower of flowers in the perfection
   and beauty of all; for the thread of love binds so closely God and the soul,
   and so unites them, that it transforms them and makes them one by love; so
   that, though in essence different, yet in glory and appearance the soul
   seems God and God the soul. Such is this marvelous union, baffling all
   description.

   2. We may form some conception of it from the love of David and Jonathan,
   whose soul was knit with the soul of David. [253] If the love of one man
   for another can be thus strong, so as to knit two souls together, what must
   that love of God be which can knit the soul of man to God the Bridegroom?
   God Himself is here the suitor Who in the omnipotence of His unfathomable
   love absorbs the soul with greater violence and efficacy than a torrent of
   fire a single drop of the morning dew which resolves itself into air. The
   hair, therefore, which accomplishes such a union must, of necessity, be most
   strong and subtle, seeing that it penetrates and binds together so
   effectually the soul and God. In the present stanza the soul declares the
   qualities of this hair.
     _________________________________________________________________

   [241] 2 Cor 12:9

   [242] Ps. 44:10

   [243] James 1:17

   [244] Cant. 1:3

   [245] Cant. 3:11

   [246] Col. 3:14

   [247] Job 41:6, 7

   [248] Cant. 7:1

   [249] Cant. 6:3

   [250] Cant. 2:5

   [251] Cant. 2:1

   [252] Col. 3:14

   [253] 1 Kings 18:1
     _________________________________________________________________

STANZA XXXI


   By that one hair

   You have observed fluttering on my neck,

   And on my neck regarded,

   You were captivated;

   And wounded by one of my eyes.

   THERE are three things mentioned here. The first is, that the love by which
   the virtues are bound together is nothing less than a strong love; for in
   truth it need be so in order to preserve them. The second is, that God is
   greatly taken by this hair of love, seeing it to be alone and strong. The
   third is, that God is deeply enamored of the soul, beholding the purity and
   integrity of its faith.


   By that one hair You have observed fluttering on my neck.

   2. The neck signifies that strength in which, it is said, fluttered the hair
   of love, strong love, which bound the virtues together. It is not sufficient
   for the preservation of virtues that love be alone, it must be also strong
   so that no contrary vice may anywhere destroy the perfection of the garland;
   for the virtues so are bound up together in the soul by the hair, that if
   the thread is once broken, all the virtues are lost; for where one virtue
   is, all are, and where one fails, all fail also. The hair is said to flutter
   on the neck, because its love of God, without any hindrance whatever,
   flutters strongly and lightly in the strength of the soul.

   3. As the air causes hair to wave and flutter on the neck, so the breath of
   the Holy Spirit stirs the strong love that it may fly upwards to God; for
   without this divine wind, which excites the powers of the soul to the
   practice of divine love, all the virtues the soul may possess become
   ineffectual and fruitless. The Beloved observed the hair fluttering on the
   neck ” that is, He considered it with particular attention and regard;
   because strong love is a great attraction for the eyes of God.


   And on my neck regarded.

   4. This shows us that God not only esteems this love, seeing it alone, but
   also loves it, seeing it strong; for to say that God regards is to say that
   He loves, and to say that He observes is to say that He esteems what He
   observes. The word neck is repeated in this line, because it, being
   strong, is the cause why God loves it so much. It is as if the soul said,
   You have loved it, seeing it strong without weakness or fear, and without
   any other love, and flying upwards swiftly and fervently.

   5. Until now God had not looked upon this hair so as to be captivated by it,
   because He had not seen it alone, separate from the others, withdrawn from
   other loves, feelings, and affections, which hindered it from fluttering
   alone on the neck of strength. Afterwards, however, when mortifications and
   trials, temptations and penance had detached it, and made it strong, so that
   nothing whatever could break it, then God beholds it, and is taken by it,
   and binds the flowers of the garlands with it; for it is now so strong that
   it can keep the virtues united together in the soul.

   6. But what these temptations and trials are, how they come, and how far
   they reach, that the soul may attain to that strength of love in which God
   unites it to Himself, I have described in the Dark Night, [254] and in the
   explanation of the four stanzas [255] which begin with the words, O living
   flame of love! The soul having passed through these trials has reached a
   degree of love so high that it has merited the divine union.


   You were captivated.

   7. O joyful wonder! God captive to a hair. The reason of this capture so
   precious is that God was pleased to observe the fluttering of the hair on
   the souls neck; for where God regards He loves. If He in His grace and
   mercy had not first looked upon us and loved us, [256] as St. John says, and
   humbled Himself, He never could have been taken by the fluttering of the
   hair of our miserable love. His flight is not so low as that our love could
   lay hold of the divine bird, attract His attention, and fly so high with a
   strength worthy of His regard, if He had not first looked upon us. He,
   however, is taken by the fluttering of the hair; He makes it worthy and
   pleasing to Himself, and then is captivated by it. You have seen it on my
   neck, You were captivated by it. This renders it credible that a bird which
   flies low may capture the royal eagle in its flight, if the eagle should fly
   so low and be taken by it willingly.


   And wounded by one of my eyes.

   8. The eye is faith. The soul speaks of but one, and that this has wounded
   the Beloved. If the faith and trust of the soul in God were not one, without
   admixture of other considerations, God never could have been Wounded by
   love. Thus the eye that wounds, and the hair that binds, must be one. So
   strong is the love of the Bridegroom for the bride, because of her simple
   faith, that, if the hair of her love binds Him, the eye of her faith
   imprisons Him so closely as to wound Him through that most tender affection
   He bears her, which is to the bride a further progress in His love.

   9. The Bridegroom Himself speaks in the Canticle of the hair and the eyes,
   saying to the bride, You have wounded My heart, My sister, My bride; you
   have wounded My heart with one of your eyes, and with one hair of your
   neck. [257] He says twice that His heart is wounded, that is, with the eye
   and the hair, and therefore the soul in this stanza speaks of them both,
   because they signify its union with God in the understanding and the will;
   for the understanding is subdued by faith, signified by the eye, and the
   will by love. Here the soul exults in this union, and gives thanks to the
   Bridegroom for it, it being His gift; accounting it a great matter that He
   has been pleased to requite its love, and to become captive to it. We may
   also observe here the joy, happiness, and delight of the soul with its
   prisoner, having been for a long time His prisoner, enamored of Him.

   NOTE

   GREAT is the power and courage of love, for God is its prisoner. Blessed is
   the soul that loves, for it has made a captive of God Who obeys its good
   pleasure. Such is the nature of love that it makes those who love do what is
   asked of them, and, on the other hand, without love the utmost efforts will
   be fruitless, but one hair will bind those that love. The soul, knowing
   this, and conscious of blessings beyond its merits, in being raised up to so
   high a degree of love, through the rich endowments of graces and virtues,
   attributes all to the Beloved, saying:
     _________________________________________________________________

   [254] ˜Dark Night, Bk. 1, ch. 14.

   [255] Stanza ii. sect. 26 ff.

   [256] 1 John 4:10

   [257] Cant. 4:9
     _________________________________________________________________

STANZA XXXII


   When You regarded me,

   Yours eyes imprinted in me Your grace:

   For this You loved me again,

   And thereby my eyes merited

   To adore what in You they saw.

   IT is the nature of perfect love to seek or accept nothing for itself, to
   attribute nothing to itself, but to refer all to the Beloved. If this is
   true of earthly love, how much more so of the love of God, the reason of
   which is so constraining. In the two foregoing stanzas the bride seemed to
   attribute something to herself; for she said that she would make garlands
   with her Beloved, and bind them with a hair of her head; that is a great
   work, and of no slight importance and worth: afterwards she said that she
   exulted in having captivated Him by a hair, and wounded Him with one of her
   eyes. All this seems as if she attributed great merits to herself. Now,
   however, she explains her meaning, and removes the wrong impression with
   great care and fear, lest any merit should be attributed to herself, and
   therefore less to God than His due, and less also than she desired. She now
   refers all to Him, and at the same time gives Him thanks, saying that the
   cause of His being the captive of the hair of her love, and of His being
   wounded by the eye of her faith, was His mercy in looking lovingly upon her,
   thereby rendering her lovely and pleasing in His sight; and that the
   loveliness and worth she received from Him merited His love, and made her
   worthy to adore her Beloved, and to bring forth good works worthy of His
   love and favor.


   When You regarded me.

   2. That is, with loving affection, for I have already said, that where God
   regards there He loves.


   Yours eyes imprinted in me Your grace.

   3. The eyes of the Bridegroom signify here His merciful divinity, which,
   mercifully inclined to the soul, imprints or infuses in it the love and
   grace by which He makes it beautiful, and so elevates it that He makes it
   the partaker of His divinity. When the soul sees to what height of dignity
   God has raised it, it says:


   For this You loved me again.

   4. To love again is to love much; it is more than simple love, it is a
   twofold love, and for two reasons. Here the soul explains the two motives of
   the Bridegrooms love; He not only loved it because captivated by the hair,
   but He loved it again, because He was wounded with one of its eyes. The
   reason why He loved it so deeply is that He would, when He looked upon it,
   give it the grace to please Him, endowing it with the hair of love, and
   animating with His charity the faith of the eye. And therefore the soul
   says:


   For this You loved me again.

   5. To say that God shows favor to the soul is to say that He renders it
   worthy and capable of His love. It is therefore as if the soul said, Having
   shown Your favor to me, worthy pledges of Your love, You have therefore
   loved me again; that is, You have given me grace upon grace; or, in the
   words of St. John, grace for grace; [258] grace for the grace He has
   given, that is more grace, for without grace we cannot merit His grace.

   6. If we could clearly understand this truth, we must keep in mind that, as
   God loves nothing beside Himself, so loves He nothing more than Himself,
   because He loves all things with reference to Himself. Thus love is the
   final cause, and God loves nothing for what it is in itself. Consequently,
   when we say that God loves such a soul, we say, in effect, that He brings it
   in a manner to Himself, making it His equal, and thus it is He loves that
   soul in Himself with that very love with which He loves Himself. Every good
   work, therefore, of the soul in God is meritorious of Gods love, because
   the soul in His favor, thus exalted, merits God Himself in every act.


   And thereby my eyes merited.

   7. That is, By the grace and favor which the eyes of Your compassion have
   wrought, when You looked upon me, rendering me pleasing in Your sight and
   worthy of Your regard.


   To adore what in You they saw.

   8. That is: The powers of my soul, O my Bridegroom, the eyes by which I can
   see You, although once fallen and miserable in the vileness of their mean
   occupations, have merited to look upon You. To look upon God is to do good
   works in His grace. Thus the powers of the soul merit in adoring because
   they adore in the grace of God, in which every act is meritorious.
   Enlightened and exalted by grace, they adored what in Him they saw, and what
   they saw not before, because of their blindness and meanness. What, then,
   have they now seen? The greatness of His power, His overflowing sweetness,
   infinite goodness, love, and compassion, innumerable benefits received at
   His hands, as well now when so near Him as before when far away. The eyes of
   the soul now merit to adore, and by adoring merit, for they are beautiful
   and pleasing to the Bridegroom. Before they were unworthy, not only to adore
   or behold Him, but even to look upon Him at all: great indeed is the
   stupidity and blindness of a soul without the grace of God.

   9. It is a melancholy thing to see how far a soul departs from its duty when
   it is not enlightened by the love of God. For being bound to acknowledge
   these and other innumerable favors which it has every moment received at His
   hands, temporal as well as spiritual, and to worship and serve Him
   unceasingly with all its faculties, it not only does not do so, but is
   unworthy even to think of Him; nor does it make any account of Him whatever.
   Such is the misery of those who are living, or rather who are dead, in sin.

   NOTE

   FOR the better understanding of this and of what follows, we must keep in
   mind that the regard of God benefits the soul in four ways: it cleanses,
   adorns, enriches, and enlightens it, as the sun, when it shines, dries,
   warms, beautifies, and brightens the earth. When God has visited the soul in
   the three latter ways, whereby He renders it pleasing to Himself, He
   remembers its former uncleanness and sin no more: as it is written, All the
   iniquities that he has wrought, I will not remember. [259]

   God having once done away with our sin and uncleanness, He will look upon
   them no more; nor will He withhold His mercy because of them, for He never
   punishes twice for the same sin, according to the words of the prophet:
   There shall not rise a double affliction. [260]

   Still, though God forgets the sin He has once forgiven, we are not for that
   reason to forget it ourselves; for the Wise Man says, Be not without fear
   about sin forgiven. [261] There are three reasons for this. We should
   always remember our sin, that we may not presume, that we may have a subject
   of perpetual thanksgiving, and because it serves to give us more confidence
   that we shall receive greater favors; for if, when we were in sin, God
   showed Himself to us so merciful and forgiving, how much greater mercies may
   we not hope for when we are clean from sin, and in His love?

   The soul, therefore, calling to mind all the mercies it has received, and
   seeing itself united to the Bridegroom in such dignity, rejoices greatly
   with joy, thanksgiving, and love. In this it is helped exceedingly by the
   recollection of its former condition, which was so mean and filthy that it
   not only did not deserve that God should look upon it, but was unworthy that
   He should even utter its name, as He says by the mouth of the prophet David:
   Nor will I be mindful of their names by My lips. [262] Thus the soul,
   seeing that there was, and that there can be, nothing in itself to attract
   the eyes of God, but that all comes from Him of pure grace and goodwill,
   attributes its misery to itself, and all the blessings it enjoys to the
   Beloved; and seeing further that because of these blessings it can merit now
   what it could not merit before, it becomes bold with God, and prays for the
   divine spiritual union, wherein its mercies are multiplied. This is the
   subject of the following stanza:
     _________________________________________________________________

   [258] John 1:16

   [259] Ezek. 18:22

   [260] Nahum 1:9

   [261] Ecclus. 5:5

   [262] Ps. 15:4
     _________________________________________________________________

STANZA XXXIII


   Despise me not,

   For if I was swarthy once,

   You can regard me now;

   Since You have regarded me,

   Grace and beauty have You given me.

   THE soul now is becoming bold, and respects itself, because of the gifts and
   endowments which the Beloved has bestowed upon it. It recognizes that these
   things, while itself is worthless and underserving, are at least means of
   merit, and consequently it ventures to say to the Beloved, Do not disregard
   me now, or despise me; for if before it deserved contempt because of the
   filthiness of its sin, and the meanness of its nature, now that He has once
   looked upon it, and thereby adorned it with grace and beauty, He may well
   look upon it a second time and increase its grace and beauty. That He has
   once done so, when the soul did not deserved it, and had no attractions for
   Him, is reason enough why He should do so again and again.


   Despise me not.

   2. The soul does not say this because it desires in any way to be esteemed
   ” for contempt and insult are of great price, and occasions of joy to the
   soul that truly loves God ” but because it acknowledges that in itself it
   merits nothing else, were it not for the gifts and graces it has received
   from God, as it appears from the words that follow.


   For if I was swarthy once.

   3. If, before You graciously looked upon me You found me in my filthiness,
   black with imperfections and sins, and naturally mean and vile,


   You can regard me now; since You have regarded me.

   4. After once looking upon me, and taking away my swarthy complexion,
   defiled by sin and disagreeable to look upon, when You rendered me lovely
   for the first time, You may well look upon me now ” that is, now I may be
   looked on and deserve to be regarded, and thereby to receive further favors
   at Your hands. For Your eyes, when they first looked upon me, not only took
   away my swarthy complexion, but rendered me also worthy of Your regard; for
   in Your look of love, ”


   Grace and beauty have You given me.

   5. The two preceding lines are a commentary on the words of St. John, grace
   for grace, [263] for when God beholds a soul that is lovely in His eyes He
   is moved to bestow more grace upon it because He dwells well-pleased within
   it. Moses knew this, and prayed for further grace: he would, as it were,
   constrain God to grant it because he had already received so much You have
   said: I know you by name, and you have found favor in My sight: if therefore
   I have found favor in Your sight, show me Your face, that I may know You,
   and may find grace before Yours eyes. [264]

   6. Now a soul which in the eyes of God is thus exalted in grace, honorable
   and lovely, is for that reason an object of His unutterable love. If He
   loved that soul before it was in a state of grace, for His own sake, He
   loves it now, when in a state of grace, not only for His own sake, but also
   for itself. Thus enamored of its beauty, through its affections and good
   works, now that it is never without them, He bestows upon it continually
   further grace and love, and the more honorable and exalted He renders that
   soul, the more is He captivated by it, and the greater His love for it.

   7. God Himself sets this truth before us, saying to His people, by the mouth
   of the prophet, since you became honorable in My eyes, and glorious, I have
   loved you. [265] That is, Since I have cast My eyes upon you, and thereby
   showed you favor, and made you glorious and honorable in My sight, you have
   merited other and further favors; for to say that God loves, is to say that
   He multiplies His grace. The bride in the Canticle speaks to the same
   effect, saying, I am black, but beautiful, O you daughters of Jerusalem.
   [266] and the Church adds, [267] saying, Therefore has the King loved me,
   and brought me into His secret chamber. This is as much as saying: O you
   souls who have no knowledge nor understanding of these favors, do not marvel
   that the heavenly King has shown such mercy to me as to plunge me in the
   depths of His love, for, though I am swarthy, He has so regarded me, after
   once looking upon me, that He could not be satisfied without betrothing me
   to Himself, and calling me into the inner chamber of His love.

   8. Who can measure the greatness of the souls exaltation when God is
   pleased with it? No language, no imagination is sufficient for this; for in
   truth God does this as God, to show that it is He who does it. The dealings
   of God with such a soul may in some degree be understood; but only in this
   way, namely, that He gives more to him who has more, and that His gifts are
   multiplied in proportion to the previous endowments of the soul. This is
   what He teaches us Himself in the Gospel, saying; He that has to him shall
   be given, and he shall abound: but he that has not, from him shall be taken
   away even that which he has. [268]

   9. Thus the talent of that servant, not then in favor with his lord, was
   taken from him and given to another who had gained others, so that the
   latter might have all, together with the favor of his lord. [269] God heaps
   the noblest and the greatest favors of His house, which is the Church
   militant as well as the Church triumphant, upon him who is most His friend,
   ordaining it thus for His greater honor and glory, as a great light absorbs
   many little lights. This is the spiritual sense of those words, already
   cited, [270] the prophet Isaiah addressed to the people of Israel: I am the
   Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior: I have given Egypt for
   your atonement and Seba for you. I will give men for you, and people for
   your life. [271]

   10. Well may You then, O God, gaze upon and prize that soul which You
   regard, for You have made it precious by looking upon it, and given it
   graces which in Your sight are precious, and by which You are captivated.
   That soul, therefore, deserves that You should regard it not only once, but
   often, seeing that You have once looked upon it; for so is it written in the
   book of Esther by the Holy Spirit: This honor is he worthy of, whom the
   king has a mind to honor. [272]

   NOTE

   THE gifts of love which the Bridegroom bestows on the soul in this state are
   inestimable; the praises and endearing expressions of divine love which pass
   so frequently between them are beyond all utterance. The soul is occupied in
   praising Him, and in giving Him thanks; and He in exalting, praising, and
   thanking the soul, as we see in the Canticle, where He thus speaks to the
   bride: Behold, you are fair, O My love, behold, you are fair; your eyes are
   as those of doves. The bride replies: Behold, you are fair, my Beloved,
   and comely. [273] These, and other like expressions, are addressed by them
   each to the other.

   2. In the previous stanza the soul despised itself, and said it was swarthy
   and unclean, praising Him for His beauty and grace, Who, by looking upon the
   soul, rendered it gracious and beautiful. He, Whose way it is to exalt the
   humble, fixing His eyes upon the soul, as He was entreated to do, praises it
   in the following stanza. He does not call it swarthy, as the soul calls
   itself, but He addresses it as His white dove, praising it for its good
   dispositions, those of a dove and a turtle-dove.
     _________________________________________________________________

   [263] John 1:16

   [264] Exod. 33:12, 13

   [265] Isa. 43:4

   [266] Cant. 1:4

   [267] Antiphon in Vesper B. M. V.

   [268] Matt. 13:12

   [269] Matt. 25:28

   [270] Sect. 7.

   [271] Isa. 43:3

   [272] Esth. 6:11

   [273] Cant. 4:1, 6:3
     _________________________________________________________________

STANZA XXXIV

    THE BRIDEGROOM


   The little white dove

   Has returned to the ark with the bough;

   And now the turtle-dove

   Its desired mate

   On the green banks has found.

   IT is the Bridegroom Himself who now speaks. He celebrates the purity of the
   soul in its present state, the rich rewards it has gained, in having
   prepared itself, and labored to come to Him. He also speaks of its
   blessedness in having found the Bridegroom in this union, and of the
   fulfillment of all its desires, the delight and joy it has in Him now that
   all the trials of life and time are over.


   The little white dove.

   2. He calls the soul, on account of its whiteness and purity ” effects of
   the grace it has received at the hands of God ” a dove, the little white
   dove, for this is the term He applies to it in the Canticle, to mark its
   simplicity, its natural gentleness, and its loving contemplation. The dove
   is not only simple, and gentle without gall, but its eyes are also clear,
   full of love. The Bridegroom, therefore, to point out in it this character
   or loving contemplation, wherein it looks upon God, says of it that its eyes
   are those of a dove: Your eyes are doves eyes. [274]


   Has returned to the ark with the bough.

   3. Here the Bridegroom compares the soul to the dove of Noahs ark, the
   going and returning of which is a figure of what befalls the soul. For as
   the dove went forth from the ark, and returned because it found no rest for
   its feet on account of the waters of the deluge, until the time when it
   returned with the olive branch in its mouth ” a sign of the mercy of God in
   drying the waters which had covered the earth ” so the soul went forth at
   its creation out of the ark of Gods omnipotence, and having traversed the
   deluge of its sins and imperfections, and finding no rest for its desires,
   flew and returned on the air of the longings of its love to the ark of its
   Creators bosom; but it only effected an entrance when God had dried the
   waters of its imperfections. Then it returned with the olive branch, that
   is, the victory over all things by His merciful compassion, to this blessed
   and perfect recollection in the bosom of the Beloved, not only triumphant
   over all its enemies, but also rewarded for its merits; for both the one and
   the other are symbolized by the olive bough. Thus the dove-soul returns to
   the ark of God not only white and pure as it went forth when He created it,
   but with the olive branch of reward and peace obtained by the conquest of
   itself.


   And now the turtle dove its desired mate on the green banks has found.

   4. The Bridegroom calls the soul the turtle-dove, because when it is seeking
   after the Beloved it is like the turtle-dove when it cannot find its desired
   mate. It is said of the turtle-dove, when it cannot find its mate, that it
   will not sits on the green boughs, nor drink of the cool refreshing waters,
   nor retire to the shade, nor mingle with companions; but when it finds its
   mate then it does all this.

   5. Such, too, is the condition of the soul, and necessarily, if it is to
   attain to union with the Bridegroom. The souls love and anxiety must be
   such that it cannot rest on the green boughs of any joy, nor drink of the
   waters of this worlds honor and glory, nor recreate itself with any
   temporal consolation, nor shelter itself in the shade of created help and
   protection: it must repose nowhere, it must avoid the society of all its
   inclinations, mourn in its loneliness, until it shall find the Bridegroom to
   its perfect contentment.

   6. And because the soul, before it attained to this estate, sought the
   Beloved in great love, and was satisfied with nothing short of Him, the
   Bridegroom here speaks of the end of its labors, and the fulfillment of its
   desires, saying: Now the turtle-dove its desired mate on the green banks
   has found. That is: Now the bride-soul sits on the green bough, rejoicing
   in her Beloved, drinks of the clear waters of the highest contemplation and
   of the wisdom of God; is refreshed by the consolations it finds in Him, and
   is also sheltered under the shadow of His favor and protection, which she
   had so earnestly desired. There is she deliciously and divinely comforted,
   refreshed and nourished, as she says in the, Canticle: I sat down under His
   shadow Whom I desired, and His fruit was sweet to my palate. [275]

   NOTE

   THE Bridegroom proceeds to speak of the satisfaction which He derives from
   the happiness which the bride has found in that solitude wherein she desired
   to live ” a stable peace and unchangeable good. For when the bride is
   confirmed in the tranquillity of her soul and solitary love of the
   Bridegroom, she reposes so sweetly in the love of God, and God also in her,
   that she requires no other means or masters to guide her in the way of God;
   for God Himself is now her light and guide, fulfilling in her what He
   promised by the mouth of Hosea, saying: I will lead her into the
   wilderness, and I will speak to her heart. [276] That is, it is in solitude
   that He communicates Himself, and unites Himself, to the soul, for to speak
   to the heart is to satisfy the heart, and no heart can be satisfied with
   less than God. And so the Bridegroom Says:
     _________________________________________________________________

   [274] Cant. 4:1

   [275] Cant. 2:3

   [276] Hos. 2:14
     _________________________________________________________________

STANZA XXXV


   In solitude she lived,

   And in solitude built her nest;

   And in solitude, alone

   Has the Beloved guided her,

   In solitude also wounded with love.

   IN this stanza the Bridegroom is doing two things: one is, He is praising
   the solitude in which the soul once lived, for it was the means whereby it
   found the Beloved, and rejoiced in Him, away from all its former anxieties
   and troubles. For, as the soul abode in solitude, abandoning all created
   help and consolation, in order to obtain the fellowship and union of the
   Beloved, it deserved thereby possession of the peace of solitude in the
   Beloved, in Whom it reposes alone, undisturbed by any anxieties.

   2. The second is this: the Bridegroom is saying that, inasmuch as the soul
   has desired to be alone, far away, for His sake, from all created things, He
   has been enamored of it because of its loneliness, has taken care of it,
   held it in His arms, fed it with all good things, and guided it to the deep
   things of God. He does not merely say that He is now the souls guide, but
   that He is its only guide, without any intermediate help, either of angels
   or of men, either of forms or of figures; for the soul in this solitude has
   attained to true liberty of spirit, and is wholly detached from all
   subordinate means.


   In solitude she lived.

   3. The turtle-dove, that is, the soul, lived in solitude before she found
   the Beloved in this state of union; for the soul that longs after God
   derives no consolation from any other companionship, ” yes, until it finds
   Him everything does but increase its solitude.


   And in solitude built her nest.

   4. The previous solitude of the soul was its voluntary privation of all the
   comforts of this world, for the sake of the Bridegroom ” as in the instance
   of the turtledove ” its striving after perfection, and acquiring that
   perfect solitude wherein it attains to union with the Word, and in
   consequence to complete refreshment and repose. This is what is meant by
   nest; and the words of the stanza may be thus explained: In that
   solitude, wherein the bride formerly lived, tried by afflictions and
   troubles, because she was not perfect, there, in that solitude, has she
   found refreshment and rest, because she has found perfect rest in God.
   This, too, is the spiritual sense of these words of the Psalmist: The
   sparrow has found herself a house, and the turtle a nest for herself, where
   she may lay her young ones; [277] that is, a sure stay in God, in Whom all
   the desires and powers of the soul are satisfied.


   And in solitude.

   5. In the solitude of perfect detachment from all things, wherein it lives
   alone with God ” there He guides it, moves it, and elevates it to divine
   things. He guides the understanding in the perception of divine things,
   because it is now detached from all strange and contrary knowledge, and is
   alone. He moves the will freely to love Himself, because it is now alone,
   disencumbered from all other affections. He fills the memory with divine
   knowledge, because that also is now alone, emptied of all imaginations and
   fancies. For the instant the soul clears and empties its faculties of all
   earthly objects, and from attachments to higher things, keeping them in
   solitude, God immediately fills them with the invisible and divine; it being
   God Himself Who guides it in this solitude. St. Paul says of the perfect,
   that they are led by the Spirit of God, [278] and that is the same as
   saying In solitude has He guided her.


   Alone has the Beloved guided her.

   6. That is, the Beloved not only guides the soul in its solitude, but it is
   He alone Who works in it directly and immediately. It is of the nature of
   the souls union with God in the spiritual marriage that God works directly,
   and communicates Himself immediately, not by the ministry of angels or by
   the help of natural capacities. For the exterior and interior senses, all
   created things, and even the soul itself, contribute very little towards the
   reception of those great supernatural favors which God bestows in this
   state; indeed, inasmuch as they do not fall within the cognizance of natural
   efforts, ability and application, God effects them alone.

   7. The reason is, that He finds the soul alone in its solitude, and
   therefore will not give it another companion, nor will He entrust His work
   to any other than Himself.

   8. There is a certain fitness in this; for the soul having abandoned all
   things, and passed through all the ordinary means, rising above them to God,
   God Himself becomes the guide, and the way to Himself. The soul in solitude,
   detached from all things, having now ascended above all things, nothing now
   can profit or help it to ascend higher except the Bridegroom Word Himself,
   Who, because enamored of the bride, will Himself alone bestow these graces
   on the soul. And so He says:


   In solitude also wounded with love.

   9. That is, the love of the bride; for the Bridegroom not only loves greatly
   the solitude of the soul, but is also wounded with love of her, because the
   soul would abide in solitude and detachment, on account of its being itself
   wounded with love of Him. He will not, therefore, leave it alone; for being
   wounded with love because of the souls solitude on His account, and seeing
   that nothing else can satisfy it, He comes Himself to be alone its guide,
   drawing it to, and absorbing it in, Himself. But He would not have done so
   if He had not found it in this spiritual solitude.

   NOTE

   IT is a strange characteristic of persons in love that they take a much
   greater pleasure in their loneliness than in the company of others. For if
   they meet together in the presence of others with whom they need have no
   intercourse, and from whom they have nothing to conceal, and if those others
   neither address them nor interfere with them, yet the very fact of their
   presence is sufficient to rob the lovers of all pleasure in their meeting.
   The cause of this lies in the fact that love is the union of two persons,
   who will not communicate with each other if they are not alone. And now the
   soul, having reached the summit of perfection, and liberty of spirit in God,
   all the resistance and contradictions of the flesh being subdued, has no
   other occupation or employment than indulgence in the joys of its intimate
   love of the Bridegroom. It is written of holy Tobit, after the trials of his
   life were over, that God restored his sight, and that the rest of his life
   was in joy. [279] So is it with the perfect soul, it rejoices in the
   blessings that surround it.

   2. The prophet Isaiah says of the soul which, having been tried in the works
   of perfection has arrived at the goal desired: Your light shall arise up in
   darkness, and your darkness shall be as the noonday. And the Lord will give
   you rest always, and will fill your soul with brightness, and deliver your
   bones, and you shall be as a watered garden and as a fountain of water whose
   waters shall not fail. And the deserts of the world shall be built in you:
   you shall raise up the foundations of generation and generation; and you
   shall be called the builder of the hedges, turning the paths into rest. If
   you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your will in My holy
   day, and call the Sabbath delicate, and the Holy of our Lord glorious, and
   glorify Him while you do not your own ways, and your will be not found, to
   speak a word: then shall you be delighted in the Lord, and I will lift you
   up above the heights of the earth, and will feed you with the inheritance of
   Jacob your father, [280] Who is God Himself. The soul, therefore, has
   nothing else to do now but to rejoice in the delights of this pasture, and
   one thing only to desire ” the perfect fruition of it in everlasting life.
   Thus, in the next and the following stanzas it implores the Beloved to admit
   it into this beatific pasture in the clear vision of God, and says:
     _________________________________________________________________

   [277] Ps. 83:4

   [278] Rom. 8:14

   [279] Tob. 14:4

   [280] Isa. 58:10-14
     _________________________________________________________________

STANZA XXXVI

    THE BRIDE


   Let us rejoice, O my Beloved,

   Let us go forth to see ourselves in Your beauty,

   To the mountain and the hill,

   Where the pure water flows:

   Let us enter into the heart of the thicket.

   THE perfect union of love between itself and God being now effected, the
   soul longs to occupy itself with those things that belong to love. It is the
   soul which is now speaking, making three petitions to the Beloved. In the
   first place, it asks for the joy and sweetness of love, saying, Let us
   rejoice. In the second place, it prays to be made like Him, saying, Let us
   go forth to see ourselves in Your beauty. In the third place, it beg