Saint John of the Cross: The Dark Night of the Soul (From Spanish)

 Once in the dark of night,

Inflamed with love and yearning, I arose
(O coming of delight!)
And went, as no one knows,
When all my house lay long in deep repose

All in the dark went right,
Down secret steps, disguised in other clothes,
(O coming of delight!)
In dark when no one knows,
When all my house lay long in deep repose.

And in the luck of night
In secret places where no other spied
I went without my sight
Without a light to guide
Except the heart that lit me from inside.

It guided me and shone
Surer than noonday sunlight over me,
And led me to the one
Whom only I could see
Deep in a place where only we could be.

O guiding dark of night!
O dark of night more darling than the dawn!
O night that can unite
A lover and loved one,
Lover and loved one moved in unison.

And on my flowering breast
Which I had kept for him and him alone
He slept as I caressed
And loved him for my own,
Breathing an air from redolent cedars blown.


And from the castle wall
The wind came down to winnow through his hair
Bidding his fingers fall,
Searing my throat with air
And all my senses were suspended there.

I stayed there to forget.
There on my lover, face to face, I lay.
All ended, and I let
My cares all fall away
Forgotten in the lilies on that day.

The Original:

La Noche Oscura Del Alma
San Juan De La Cruz

Cançiones del alma que se goça d’auer llegado al alto estado de la perfecçion, que es la union con Dios, por el camino de la negaçion espiritual

En una noche obscura,
con ansias en amores imflamada,
¡oh dichosa uentura!
sali sin ser notada,
estando ya mi casa sosegada.

A escuras y segura,
por la secreta escala disfraçada,
¡oh dichosa uentura!
a escuras y ençelada,
estando ya mi casa sosegada.

En la noche dichosa,
en secreto, que nadie me ueya,
ni yo miraua cosa,
sin otra luz ni guia
sino la que en el coraçon ardia.

Aquesta me guiaua
mas cierto que la luz del mediodia,
adonde me esperaua
quien yo bien me sabia,
en parte donde nadie parecia.

¡Oh noche que me guiaste!
¡oh noche amable mas que el aluorada!,
¡oh noche que juntaste
amado con amada,
amada en el amado transformada!

Y en mi pecho florido,
que entero para el solo se guardaua,
alli quedo dormido,
y yo le regalaua,
y el ventalle de cedros ayre daua.

El ayre de la almena,
cuando ya sus cabellos esparzia,
con su mano serena
en mi cuello heria,
y todos mis sentidos suspendia.

Quedeme y oluideme,
el rostro recline sobre el amado,
ceso todo, y dexeme,
dexando mi cuidado
entre las açucenas olvidado

Phases BY WALLACE STEVENS

 Phases

BY WALLACE STEVENS

I.

There’s a little square in Paris,

Waiting until we pass.

They sit idly there,

They sip the glass.

There’s a cab-horse at the corner,

There's rain. The season grieves.

It was silver once,

And green with leaves.

There’s a parrot in a window,

Will see us on parade,

Hear the loud drums roll—

And serenade.

                           II.

This was the salty taste of glory,

That it was not

Like Agamemnon’s story.

Only, an eyeball in the mud,

And Hopkins,

Flat and pale and gory!

                           III.

But the bugles, in the night,

Were wings that bore

To where our comfort was;

Arabesques of candle beams,

Winding

Through our heavy dreams;

Winds that blew

Where the bending iris grew;

Birds of intermitted bliss,

Singing in the night's abyss;

Vines with yellow fruit,

That fell

Along the walls

That bordered Hell.

                           IV.

Death's nobility again

Beautified the simplest men.

Fallen Winkle felt the pride

Of Agamemnon

When he died.

What could London’s

Work and waste

Give him—

To that salty, sacrificial taste?

What could London’s

Sorrow bring—

To that short, triumphant sting?

Source: Poetry

Of Modern Poetry BY WALLACE STEVENS

 Of Modern Poetry

BY WALLACE STEVENS

The poem of the mind in the act of finding   

What will suffice. It has not always had   

To find: the scene was set; it repeated what   

Was in the script.

                               Then the theatre was changed   

To something else. Its past was a souvenir.

It has to be living, to learn the speech of the place.   

It has to face the men of the time and to meet   

The women of the time. It has to think about war   

And it has to find what will suffice. It has   

To construct a new stage. It has to be on that stage   

And, like an insatiable actor, slowly and

With meditation, speak words that in the ear,   

In the delicatest ear of the mind, repeat,

Exactly, that which it wants to hear, at the sound   

Of which, an invisible audience listens,

Not to the play, but to itself, expressed

In an emotion as of two people, as of two   

Emotions becoming one. The actor is

A metaphysician in the dark, twanging

An instrument, twanging a wiry string that gives   

Sounds passing through sudden rightnesses, wholly   

Containing the mind, below which it cannot descend,   

Beyond which it has no will to rise.

                                                         It must

Be the finding of a satisfaction, and may

Be of a man skating, a woman dancing, a woman   

Combing. The poem of the act of the mind.

null-a2

 THE OCCUPANTS of each floor of the hotel must as usual during the games form their 

own protective groups … .” Gosseyn stared somberly out of the curving corner window of his hotel room. From its thirty-story vantage point, he could see the city of the Machine spread out below him. The day was bright and clear, and the span of his vision was tremen- dous. To his left, he could see a blue-black river sparkling with the waves whipped up by the late-afternoon breeze. To the north, the low mountains stood out sharply against the high backdrop of the blue sky. 

That was the visible periphery. Within the confines of the mountains and the river, the buildings that he could see crowded along the broad streets. Mostly, they were homes with bright roofs that glinted among palms and semitropical trees. But here and there were other hotels, and more tall buildings not identifiable at first glance. The Machine itself stood on the leveled crest of a mountain. It was a scintillating, silvery shaft rearing up into the sky nearly five miles away. Its gardens, and the presidential mansion nearby, were partially concealed behind trees. But Gosseyn felt no interest in the setting. The Machine itself overshadowed every other object in his field of vision. The sight of it was immensely bracing. In spite of himself, in spite of his dark mood, Gosseyn experienced a sense of wonder. Here he was, at long last, to partic- ipate in the games of the Machine—the games which meant wealth and position for those who were partially successful, and the trip to Venus for the special group that won top honors.

Common sense

, do what it will, cannot avoid being surprised occasionally. The object of science is to spare it this emotion and create mental habits which shall be in such close accord with the habits of the world as to secure that 

nothing shall be unexpected.