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I live within myself no longer,

Deprived of God i cannot live;

Lacking Him and self im left.

So such a life - what will it be?

Since i await my very life,

Dying because i do not die.



This life i live in such a way

Is nothing but life's deprivation,

One prolonged annihilation,

Till at last i live with Thee.

Hear, my God, hear what i say,

I do not want this life of mine;

I die because i do not die.



Being absent and apart from Thee

What kind of life can i possess

But one that bears the pangs of death,

The worst of deaths i've ever seen?

I have some pity for myself

Since by living i continue

To die because i do not die.



Even the fish drawn out of water

Does not lack alleviation;

Death comes at last, the termination

Of the death-throes that it suffers.

What death is there to equal this,

This sad, despairing life i live?

The more i live the more i die.



When thinking it will bring relief

To see Thee in the Sacrament,

My grief and pain are only deepened

To find that i cannot enjoy Thee.

All brings me greater misery

Not to see Thee as i long to

And i die because i do not die.



And if i take delight, my Lord,

In the hope of seeing Thee,

On seeing i can lose Thee

My agony is doubled.

Living in so great a dread

And waiting, yearning as i do,

I die because i do not die.



Lift me from this death, release me,

Give me living life, my God,

Not keep me in so strong a bond

To cripple and impede me;

For look, i long, i grieve to see Thee,

My sickness fills me so completely

That i die because i do not die.



I will mourn my death already,

Lament the life i live, as long

As misdeed, sin and wrong

Detain it in captivity.

O my God, when will it be?

The time when i can say for sure,

At last i live: I die no more.

On a night of darkness,

In love's anxiety of longing kindled,

O blessed chance!

I lef by none beheld,

My house in sleep and silence stilled.



In darkness and secure,

By the secret ladder and disguised,

O blessed venture!

In darkness and conceled,

My house in sleep and silence stilled.



By dark of blessed night,

In secrecy, for no one saw me

And i regarded nothing,

My only light and guide

The one that in my heart was burning.



This guided, led me on

More surely than the radiance of noon

To where there waited one

Who was to me well known,

And in a place where no one came in view.



O night, you were the guide!

O night more desirable than dawn!

O dark of night you joined

Beloved with belov'd one,

Belov'd one in Beloved now transformed!



Upon my flowering breast,

Entirely kept for him and him alone,

There he stayed and slept

and i caressed him

In breezes from the fan of cedars blown.



Breezes on the battlements-

As i was spreading out his hair,

With his unhurried hand

He wounded my neck

And all my senses left suspended there.



I stayed, myself forgotten,

My countenance against my love reclined;

All ceased, and self foresaken

I left my care behind

Among the lilies, unremembered.