I no longer live within myself
and I cannot live without God
for having neither Him nor myself
what will life be?
It will be a thousand deaths
longing for my true life
and dying because I do not die.
This life that I live
is no life at all
and so I die continually
until I live with You;
hear me, my God:
I do not desire this life,
I am dying because I do not die.
When I am away from You
what life can I have
except to endure
the bitterest death known?
I pity myself
for I go on and on living,
dying because I do not die.
A fish that leaves the water has this relief
the dying it endures
ends at last in death.
What death can equal my pitiable life?
For the longer I live, the more drawn out is my dying.
When I try to find relief
seeing You in the Sacrament,
I find this greater sorrow:
I cannot enjoy You wholly.
All things are affliction
since I do not see You as I desire,
and I die because I do not die.
And if I rejoice, Lord,
in the hope of seeing You,
yet seeing I can lose You
doubles my sorrow.
Living in such fear
and hoping as I hope
I die because I do not die.
Lift me from this death
my God, and give me life
do not hold me bound
with these bonds so strong;
see how I long to see You
my wretchedness is so complete
that I die because I do not die.
I will cry out for death
and mourn my living
while I am held here
for my sins.
O my God, when will it be
the I can truly say:
now I live because I do not die?
He whom I bow to only knows to whom I bow
When I attempt the ineffable Name, murmering Thou,
And dream of Pheidian fancies and embrace in heart
Symbols (I know) which cannot be the thing Thou art.
Thus always, taken at their word, all prayers blaspheme
And all men in their praying, self-deceived, address
The coinage of their own unquiet thoughts, unless
Thou in magnetic mercy to Thyself divert
Our arrows, aimed unskilfully, beyond desert;
And all men are idolators, crying unheard
To a deaf idol, if Thou take them at their word.
Take not, oh Lord, our literal sense. Lord, in Thy great
Unbroken speech our limping metaphor translate.
Here lies the whole world after one
Peculiar mode; a buried sun,
Stars and immensities of sky
And cities here discarded lie.
The prince who owned them, having gone,
Left them as things not needed on
His journey; yet with that hope that he,
Purged by aeonian poverty
In lenten lands, hereafter can
Resume the robes he wore as man.
Should Sorrow lay her hand upon thy shoulder,
And walk with thee in silence on life's way,
While joy, thy bright companion once, grows colder,
Becomes more distant day by day;
Shrink not from the companionship of Sorrow,
She is the messenger of God to thee;
And thou wilt thank Him in His great tomorrow.
For what thou knowest not now thou then shall see;
She is God's angel, clad in weeds of night,
With whom "we walk by faith, and not by sight."
Batter my heart, three person'd God; for, You
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurped town, to another due
Labor to admit You, but Oh, to no end,
Reason, Your viceroy in me, me should defend
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love You, and would be loved faine
But am betrothed unto Your enemy
Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
Take me to You, imprison me, for I
Except You enthrall me, never shall be free
Nor ever chaste, except You ravish me.