The Spiritual Canticle (poem): Where Have You Hidden?

A Spiritual Canticle between the Soul and Christ

The Bride

I

Where hast Thou hidden Thyself?
Why hast Thou forsaken me in my groaning, O my Beloved?
Thou didst fly like the hart, away,
When Thou hadst wounded me.
I ran after Thee, crying; but Thou wert gone.

II

O shepherds, you who go
Through the sheepcots up the hill,
If you shall see Him
Whom I love,
Tell Him I languish, agonize, and die.

III

In search of my Love
I will traverse mountains and strands;
I will gather no flowers,
I will fear no wild beasts;
And I will overpass the mighty and the frontiers.

IV

Ye groves and thickets
Planted by the hand of the Beloved;
Ye verdant meads
Enamelled with flowers;
Tell me, has He passed by you?

Answer of the Creatures

V

A thousand graces diffusing
He passed through the groves in haste,
And beholding them only
As He passed,
He clothed them with His beauty.

The Bride

VI

O who can heal me?
Give me perfectly Thyself,
Send me no more
A messenger
Who cannot tell me what I seek.

VII

All they who serve
Relate a thousand graces of Thee;
And all wound me more and more,
And they leave me dying,
While they babble I know not what.

VIII

But how thou perseverest, O life!
Not living where thou livest;
The arrows bring death
Which thou receivest
From thy conceptions of the Beloved.

IX

Why, after wounding
This heart, hast Thou not healed it?
And why, after stealing it,
Hast Thou thus abandoned it,
And not carried away what Thou hast stolen?

X

Quench Thou my troubles,
For none else can do so;
And let mine eyes behold Thee
Who art their light,
And it is for Thee alone I would use them.

XI

Reveal Thy presence,
And let the vision of Thy beauty kill me.
Behold, the disease
Of love is incurable
Except in Thy presence and in the light of Thy countenance.

XII

O Fount of crystal!
O that on Thy silvered surface
Thou wouldest mirror forth at once
Those eyes desirable
Which I have in my heart delineated!

XIII

Turn them away, O my Beloved!
I fly away.

The Bridegroom

Return, My Dove!
The wounded hart
Looms on the hill
In the air of thy flight and is refreshed.

The Bride

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 hath flourished;
While of roses
We make a nosegay,
And let no one appear on the hill.

XVII

Cease, O thou killing north wind!
Come, O south wind, thou that awakenest love
Blow through my garden,
And let its odours flow,
And my 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 my threshold.

XIX

Hide Thyself, O my Beloved!
Let Thy face shine on the mountains.
Do not tell it,
But regard the companions
Of her who traverses strange islands.

The Bridegroom

XX

Light-winged birds,
Lions, fawns, bounding deer,
Mountains, valleys, strands,
Waters, winds, fires,
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 peace.

XXII

The Bride has entered
The pleasant and desirable garden,
And there reposes to her heart’s content;
Her neck reclining
On the sweet arms of her Beloved.

XXIII

Beneath the apple-tree
I espoused thee:
There I gave thee My hand,
And thou wert there redeemed
Where thy mother was corrupted.

The Bride

XXIV

Our bed is of flowers
By the dens of lions encompassed,
Hung with purple,
Made in peace,
And crowned with a thousand shields of gold.

XXV

In Thy footsteps
The young ones run Thy way;
At the touch of the fire,
And by the spiced wine,
The Divine balsam flows.

XXVI

In the inmost 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
I am no longer seen or found,
Say that I am lost;
That, being enamoured,
I lost myself; and yet I gained.

XXX

Of emeralds, and of flowers
In the early morning culled,
We will make the garlands,
Flowering in Thy love,
And bound together with one hair of my head.

XXXI

By that one hair
Thou hast observed fluttering on my neck,
And hast regarded on my neck,
Thou wert captivated;
And wounded by one of my eyes.

XXXII

When Thou didst regard me,
Thine eyes imprinted Thy grace in me:
For this didst Thou love me again,
And thereby mine eyes did merit
To adore what in Thee they saw.

XXXIII

Despise me not,
For if I was swarthy once
Thou canst regard me now;
Since Thou hast regarded me,
Grace and beauty hast Thou given me.

The Bridegroom

XXXIV

The little white dove
Has returned to the ark with the bough;
And now the turtle-dove
Her desired mate
On the green banks has found.

XXXV

In solitude she lived,
And in solitude built her nest;
And in solitude, alone
Hath the Beloved guided her,
In solitude also wounded with her love.

The Bride

XXXVI

Let us rejoice, O my Beloved!
Let us go forth to see ourselves in Thy 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 lofty caverns of the rocks
Which are all secret,
There we shall enter in
And taste of the new wine of the pomegranate.

XXXVIII

There Thou wilt show me
What my soul desired;
And there Thou wilt give at once,
O Thou, my life!
What Thou gavest 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 fire that consumes, but without pain.

XL

None saw it;
Neither did Aminadab appear.
The siege was intermitted,
And the cavalry dismounted
At the vision of the waters.