The Dark Night: Stanzas of the Soul

One dark night,
fired with love’s urgent longings
— ah, the sheer grace! —
I went out unseen,
my house being now all stilled.

In darkness, and secure,
by the secret ladder, disguised,
— ah, the sheer grace! —
in darkness and concealment,
my house being now all stilled.

On that glad night,
in secret, for no one saw me,
nor did I look at anything,
with no other light or guide
than the one that burned in my heart.

This guided me
more surely than the light of noon
to where he was awaiting me
— him I knew so well —
there in a place where no one appeared.

O guiding night!
O night more lovely than the dawn!
O night that has united
the Lover with his beloved,
transforming the beloved in her Lover.

Upon my flowering breast
which I kept wholly for him alone,
there he lay sleeping,
and I caressing him
there in a breeze from the fanning cedars.

When the breeze blew from the turret,
as I parted his hair,
it wounded my neck
with its gentle hand,
suspending all my senses.

 No mystic has been able to assure the world beyond all doubt that he has seen the ultimate Reality face to face, no matter how persuasive the symbol or literary image under which he has managed to objectify his experience. But the information that exotic contemplatives have been offering us through the centuries and the most diverse cultures have been given, as Evelyn Undedrhill recalls (1), with a strange note of certainty and good faith, and in some way convince that they have reached exceptional levels of consciousness, in which they have experienced the joyous transformation.Faust's reflection in the monologue does not disperse or go from one term to another, relegating them successively, to grasp the last one as truth; he circulates through a complex environment and feels the roughnesses that are offered in it.