Saint John of the Cross was a Spanish Carmelite friar and poet who lived in 16th-century Spain. Long before his spiritual writings were studied, he expressed his deepest experiences of God through poetry, written in his native Spanish and shaped by prayer, silence, and suffering.
“Dark Night” is one of his most well-known poems, later translated into English. It reflects the inner journey of detachment—the quiet letting go of comfort, certainty, and even spiritual consolation. The darkness he writes about is not despair, but trust. A passage where love moves forward without relying on sight or feeling.
Dark Night
by Saint John of the Cross
On a dark night,
fired with love’s urgent longings—
ah, the sheer grace!—
I went out unseen,
my house being now all still.
In darkness and secure,
by the secret ladder, disguised—
ah, the sheer grace!—
in darkness and hidden,
my house being now all still.
In that happy 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 light guided me
more surely than the noon-day sun
to where He waited for me—
Him I knew so well—
in a place where no one else appeared.
O night that guided me,
O night more lovely than the dawn,
O night that joined
Beloved with lover,
lover transformed in the Beloved.
Upon my flowering breast,
which I kept wholly for Him alone,
there He lay sleeping,
and I caressed Him,
and the breeze from the fanning cedars refreshed Him.
As I fanned Him,
with my hand upon His neck,
the breeze blew from the turret,
and as He felt it,
He slept peacefully, and I remained lost.
I stayed and forgot myself,
my face resting on the Beloved.
All things ceased.
I left myself behind,
forgotten among the lilies.
⌨ ᴛʸᵖⁱⁿᵍ ᴏᵘᵗ ᵒᶠ ᵗʰᵉ ʙˡᵘᵉ ᵈᵃʳᵉᵐ ᵐᵘˢⁱᶜ ᵇˡᵒᵍ
Out this season on Bandcamp.
