Spiritual Canticle

I

Where have you hidden,
beloved, and left me moaning?
You fled like the stag
after wounding me;
I went out calling you, and you were gone.

II

Shepherds, you that go
up through the sheepfolds to the hill,
if by chance you see
him I love most,
tell him that I sicken, suffer, and die.

III

Seeking my love
I will head for the mountains and watersides
I will not gather flowers,
nor fear wild beasts;
I will go beyond strongholds and frontiers.

IV

O woods and thickets
planted by the hand of my beloved!
O green meadow,
coated, bright, with flowers,
tell me if he passed by you!

V

Pouring out a thousand graces,
he passed these groves in haste;
and having looked at them,
with his image alone,
Clothed them in beauty.

VI

Ah, who has the power to heal me?
Now wholly surrender yourself,
do not send me
any more messengers,
they cannot tell me what I must hear.

VII

All who are free
tell me a thousand graceful things of you;
all wound me more
and leave me dying
Of an I-don't-know-what behind their
                                         stammering.

VIII

But, how do you endure
O life, not living where you live,
and being brought near death
by the arrows you receive
from that which you conceive your beloved?

IX

Why, since you wounded
this heart, don't you heal it?
And why, since you stole it from me,
do you leave it so,
and fail to carry off what you have stolen?

X

Extinguish these miseries,
since no one else can stamp them out;
and may my eyes behold you,
because you are their light,
and I would open them to you alone.

XI

Disclose your presence
and let me be killed by your sight and beauty
Procure the sickness
of love, which is not healed
but with your presence and figure.

XII

O spring like crystal!
If only on your silvered-over face,
you would suddenly form
the eyes I have desired,
which I bear sketched deep within my heart!

XIII

Withdraw them, beloved,
for I am taking flight.
                         Return, dove,
the wounded stag
is in sight on the hill,
colled by the breeze of your flight.

XIV

My beloved, the mountains
and lonely wooded valleys,
strange islands,
and resounding rivers,
the whistling of love-stirring breezes.

XV

The tranquil night
at the time of the rising dawn,
silent music,
sounding solitude,
the supper that refreshes and deepens love.

XVI

Catch us the foxes,
for our vineyard is now in flower,
while we of roses
fashion a pine,
and let no one appear on the hill.

XVII

Be still, deadening north wind,
south wind come, you that waken love,
breathe through my garden,
let its fragance flow,
and the beloved will feed amidst the flowers.

XVIII

O nymphs of Judea,
while among flowers and roses
the amber spreads its perfume,
stay away, there on the outskirts,
do not seek to touch our thresholds.

XIX

Hide yourself, my little darling,
turn your face toward the mountains,
and do not seek to say;
but look at those companions
going with her through strange islands.
 

XX

Swift-winged birds,
lions, stags, and leaping roes,
mountains, lowlands, and river banks,
waters, winds, and ardors,
watching fears of night: