Song of Christ and the Soul

A SHEPHERD is alone and in pain,
Deprived of all pleasure and joy,
His thoughts on his shepherdess intent,
And his heart is by love most cruelly torn.

He weeps, not because he is wounded with love,
And his distress brings him no pain,
Though a wound is made in his heart ;
But he weeps because he thinks he is forgot.
His beautiful shepherdess, so does he think,
Has forgotten him : that thought alone
Makes him suffer in the land of the stranger,
And his heart is by love most cruelly torn.

The shepherd exclaims, Ah wretch that I am !
For I am abandoned and left ;
My presence is shunned by my love,
And my heart for her love is most cruelly torn.
At last he was raised on a tree,
Where he opened his beautiful arms,
And on it, he died,
His heart by love most cruelly torn.
THE MOST HOLY TRINITY*
(In pyincipio erat Verbum).
IN the beginning was the Word,
The Word was God,
In Whom He possessed
Bliss everlasting.

The Word was God,
He is the Beginning ;
He was in the Beginning,
And never began.
He was the Beginning itself,
And therefore had none ;
The Word is the Son,
From the beginning born.
Maria del Sacramento, Escritoras espanolas, ii. 176.)

He has begotten for ever,
And is for ever begetting ;
He gives Him of His substance for ever,
And has it for ever Himself.
And thus the glory of the Son
Is that He hath in the Father,
And all His glory the Father
Hath in the Son.

As the lover with his love,
Each in the other living,
So this Love which Both unites
Is One in Both.

In dignity and might
Coequal with them Both,
Three Persons, and one Love,
The Three are One.

And in the Three one Love,
One Lover makes of All ;
The Lover is the Love
In Whom Each doth live.

The Being which the Three possess
Each by Himself possesses,
And of the three Each loves the other
In that He hath this Being.
This Being is Each One,
And alone makes Them One
In a way ineffable,
Beyond the reach of words.

And so that Love which makes Them One
Is Infinite Itself;
For one Love make One the Three,
And is their Being as well,
And that Love the more it makes Them One
The more It is Their Love.