O my God!
How did Your love burst forth within my ribs?
It struts in its strength over the weakness of my spirit..
and roams in its might over the rapture of my soul.
Did it come from the meadows of light,
to fetter my pains with its sweetness?
And set the heart aflame with its power..
Or did it come to rebel against my stillness,
so that my inmost being goes mad, bowed low,
around my raging yearnings,
and dreams lie down contented,
brimming with serenity,
beside my straining ribs..
Have You come to weary my youth with thoughts of pain,
and to open in my trembling soul stabbings that will not be stilled —
or have You come to deepen the darkness of my soul
and bind it with the illusions of Your great love?
It is a force like rock, drawing me to You,
sweeping like fire, pulling my eyelids toward Your world;
and my heart flies to Your beloved cave..
and the fragrance of Your strength glistens,
and my great faith comes back to me,
and in it I forget my sickness and my loneliness..
And yet my heart is sad, O God, sad..
alone in a world of affliction and clamor,
and my conscience is a weary panting
in which my depths turn blasphemous,
and my soul is a painful silence
at which my limbs tremble —
bitter, forsaken tremblings —
and hope.. is a mirage.. a deception,
and my dream is an everlasting pull
toward the earth that was heaped over my mother,
over the dreams of her girlhood,
before my eyes had ever seen
a single lock of white hair
adorning the jet-black of her head.
O my God! How did Your love burst forth within my ribs a second time?
