Pike County Ballads and Other Poems

AMOR MYSTICUS.

          FROM THE SPANISH OF SOR MARCELA DE CARPIO.

  Let them say to my Lover
      That here I lie!
  The thing of His pleasure,
      His slave am I.

  Say that I seek Him
      Only for love,
  And welcome are tortures
      My passion to prove.

  Love giving gifts
      Is suspicious and cold;
  I have all, my Beloved,
      When Thee I hold.

  Hope and devotion
      The good may gain;
  I am but worthy
      Of passion and pain.

  So noble a Lord
      None serves in vain,
  For the pay of my love
      Is my love's sweet pain.

  I love Thee, to love Thee,—
      No more I desire;
  By faith is nourished
      My love's strong fire.

  I kiss Thy hands
      When I feel their blows;
  In the place of caresses
      Thou givest me woes.

  But in Thy chastising
      Is joy and peace.
  O Master and Love,
      Let Thy blows not cease.

  Thy beauty, Beloved,
      With scorn is rife,
  But I know that Thou lovest me,
      Better than life.

  And because thou lovest me,
      Lover of mine,
  Death can but make me
      Utterly Thine.

  I die with longing
      Thy face to see;
  Oh! sweet is the anguish
      Of death to me!