I live, yet do not Live in Me - John of the Cross

The following poem expresses the intensity with which John of the Cross longs to be united with his Love, Father God.  The language is very emotive and calculated to move the reader to understand something of the passion with which John feels about this.   The author of The Dark Night of the Soul conveys something of the searing and tearing existence which separation from union causes him.  He can find no peace, he can know no rest; he is dying because he does not die.


I live yet do not live in me,

am waiting as my life goes by,

and die because I do not die.

No longer do I live in me,

and without God I cannot live;

to him or me I cannot give

my self, so what can living be?

A thousand deaths my agony

waiting as my life goes by,

dying because I do not die.


This life I live alone I view

as robbery of life, and so

it is a constant death -- with no

way out until I live with you.

God, hear me, what I say is true:

I do not want this life of mine,

and die because I do not die.

Being so removed from you I say

what kind of life can I have here

but death so ugly and severe

and worse than any form of pain?

I pity me -- and yet my fate

is that I must keep up this lie,

and die because I do not die.


The fish taken out of the sea

is not without a consolation:

his dying is of brief duration

and ultimately brings relief.

Yet what convulsive death can be

as bad as my pathetic life?

The more I live the more I die.

When I begin to feel relief

on seeing you in the sacrament,

I sink in deeper discontent,

deprived of your sweet company.

Now everything compels my grief:

I want -- yet can't -- see you nearby,

and die because I do not die.


Although I find my pleasure, Sir,

in hope of someday seeing you,

I see that I can lose you too,

which makes my pain doubly severe,

and so I live in darkest fear,

and hope, wait as life goes by,

dying because I do not die.

Deliver me from death, my God,

and give me life; now you have wound

a rope about me; harshly bound

I ask you to release the cord.

See how I die to see you, Lord,

and I am shattered where I lie,

dying because I do not die.

My death will trigger tears in me,

and I shall mourn my life: a day

annihilated by the way

I fail and sin relentlessly.

O Father God, when will it be

that I can say without a lie:

I live because I do not die?