San John of the Cross was born on a day like today from 1542 en fontiveros, a small town in the province of Castilla y León. Is the maximum figure of national poetic mysticism next to Santa Teresa de Jesús, with whom he maintained a deep friendship. I rescue some poems yours in memory of your anniversary.
San John of the Cross
When I had 17 years entered the Jesuits and, four years later, took the habits of the order of the Carmelitas. He adopted the name of Fray Juan de San Matías, but later, when he was ordained a priest, took its definitive name, John of the Cross.
He kept a great friendship with Teresa de Ávila and with her he founded the first convent of Discalced Carmelites, an order of monks dedicated to divine contemplation and practicing austerity. What wanted to reform the monastic foundations of the orders consecrated, he was accused of apostate. They sentenced him to 9 months in jail in Toledo and there he dedicated himself to writing poetry.
La main feature of his work is the huge religious feeling, full of mysticism. But it also contains a reading between the lines with much of sensuality or with a eroticism veiled behind that deep religious vocation. These are some of his
Most representative verses
Soul songs
Dark night
I
On a dark night
eagerly in love aflame
Oh happy luck!
I left without being noticed
my house being calm,
dark and safe
by the secret scale in disguise,
Oh happy luck!
in the dark and in a trap
being my house calm.
In the blissful night
in secret that nobody saw me
nor did I look at anything
without another light and guide
but the one that burned in the heart.
Aquesta was guiding me
truer than the midday light
where was he waiting for me
who I knew well
in a place where no one appeared.
Oh night, you led!
Oh night, more lovely than the dawn!
Oh night that you put together
loved with beloved,
beloved into the beloved transformed!
In my flowery chest
what a whole he only kept for him
there he fell asleep
and I gave him
and the wind of cedars gave air.
The air of the battlement
when I scattered her hair
with his serene hand
and on my neck it hurt
and all my senses suspended.
Stay and forget me
I reclined my face on the beloved;
everything ceased, and I left
leaving my care
among the lilies forgotten.
II
Oh flame of love alive,
what do you tenderly hurt
of my soul in the deepest center!
Well, you are no longer elusive,
finish now if you want;
break the fabric of this sweet encounter.
Oh soft cautery!
Oh sore gift!
O soft hand! Oh delicate touch,
that eternal life tastes
and all debt pays!
Killing, death in life you have changed.
Oh lamps of fire
in whose glows
the deep caverns of sense
that it was dark and blind
with strange delicacies
heat and light give your loved one!
How meek and loving
do you remember in my bosom
where you only secretly dwell
and in your tasty breath
of good and glory full
how delicately you make me fall in love!
The shepherd
A shepherd is only punished,
oblivious to pleasure and contentment,
and in his shepherdess put the thought,
and the chest of love very hurt.
He does not cry for having hurt him,
that he is not sorry to see himself so afflicted,
although in the heart it is wounded;
but cries for thinking that he is forgotten.
Than just thinking that he is forgotten
of his beautiful shepherdess, with great sorrow
he lets himself be mistreated in a foreign land,
the chest of love very hurt.
And the little shepherd says: Oh, unfortunate
of the one who has been absent from my love
and does not want to enjoy my presence,
and the chest for his love very hurt!
And after a long time he has risen
on a tree, did he open his beautiful arms,
and dead he has been clinging to them,
the chest of love very hurt