Dec 20 2024
John of the Cross – The Fountain
The Fountain
by John of the Cross
English version by Willis Barnstone
How well I know that flowing spring
in black of night.
The eternal fountain is unseen.
How well I know where she has been
in black of night.
I do not know her origin.
None. Yet in her all things begin
in black of night.
I know that nothing is so fair
and earth and firmament drink there
in black of night.
I know that none can wade inside
to find her bright bottomless tide
in black of night.
Her shining never has a blur;
I know that all light comes from her
in black of night.
I know her streams converge and swell
and nourish people, skies and hell
in black of night.
The stream whose birth is in this source
I know has a gigantic force
in black of night.
The stream from but these two proceeds
yet neither one, I know, precedes
in black of night.
The eternal fountain is unseen
in living bread that gives us being
in black of night.
She calls on all mankind to start
to drink her water, though in dark,
for black is night.
O living fountain that I crave,
in bread of life I see her flame
in black of night.
— from To Touch the Sky: Poems of Mystical, Spiritual & Metaphysical Light, Translated by Willis Barnstone
/ Image by John Wilson /
As we enter the Christmas season, my thoughts turn to one of my favorite Christian poets, John of the Cross. This is a relatively simple poem, but it touches on several key themes in John of the Cross’s writings: a dark night, unknowing, and a fountain.
In this poem, John of the Cross is speaking of a secret fountain as if it is a divine, living being — and it is. This isn’t merely a poetic metaphor, it is a description of actual mystical experience rendered into the language of poetry.
Mystics throughout the world and in all traditions describe an awareness of a flowing of water, a water that is alive. Coming into contact with that water, touching it, drinking it, feeling it flow inside you and all around you, quickens a new sense of life within. Everything, yourself included, is suddenly seen as radically alive in a way that could not have been imagined before. It is this water that is the foundational “stuff” of the manifest world, all things are formed of it and exist within it.
Accompanying this is a sense of a rising up and overflowing of energy — a fountain. This is felt as originating in the seat, beginning to spread out in the solar plexus, flowing generously in the heart, and anointing the crown with a glistening light.
John of the Cross refers to this fountain as “she,” equating it with the Holy Spirit in Christian tradition.
And why is this fountain always discovered “in black of night”? Night, the dark night of the soul, is fundamental to the mystical language developed by John of the Cross. One way to understand it is as the disorienting space of initiation, when the awareness has released its identification with material creation, and waits uncertainly for the Divine. Understood this way, the night is the spiritual threshold. It is within this psychic emptiness that we discover the fountain.
May this Christmas, Solstice, Hanukkah, New Year be one of healing and renewal. May we all rediscover the spiritual light amidst the dark of winter. Sending love to you all.
Recommended Books: John of the Cross
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John of the Cross |
John of the Cross was born Juan de Ypes in a village near Avila, Spain. His father died when he was young, and he was raised in poverty with his two brothers by his widowed mother.
In his early 20s, John entered the Carmelite order and moved to Salamanca to further his studies. Among his other teachers was the well-known mystic and poet Fray Luis de Leon.
Still in his 20s, the young John of the Cross first met the woman who would become his mentor, Teresa of Avila, who was in her 50s at the time. Teresa of Avila was a mystic, a writer, a social activist, and a founder of several monasteries. She had begun a reform movement within the Carmelite Order, advocating a return to simplicity and the essential spirituality that should be at the heart of any monastic order. John of the Cross joined her movement of Discalced Carmelites and quickly became a leading figure himself.
Members of the unreformed Carmelites felt threatened by the critique from this new movement, and they turned to force, imprisoning and even torturing John of the Cross. He was held in a tiny cell in Toledo for nine months, until he escaped.
As terrible as this experience must have been, it was during his time of imprisonment that John’s spirituality and poetry began to blossom. The experience of losing everything, of being supremely vulnerable, seems to have brought John of the Cross to a profound state of openness and spiritual insight.
It was during his imprisonment that John began to write poetry.
Once he escaped from prison, John continued his work with Teresa of Avila, founding new monasteries and advocating for their spiritual reforms. He spent the rest of his life as a spiritual director among the Discalced Carmelites.
His two best known works, the Spiritual Canticle and Dark Night of the Soul, are considered masterpieces of Spanish poetry and esoteric Christianity. Besides these, he wrote many other short poems, along with extensive commentaries on the meaning of his poetry as they relate to the soul’s experience of divine reality.
Hi Ivan, thanks and I particularly enjoyed your thought for the day. Nicely put!
I’m also wondering if there is a translation of this poem from the Spanish that isn’t so committed to rhyming verse – do you know of one?
Wishing you and your readers are very joyous festive season and New Year 2025, drawing ever closer to the sacred garden. 💛
Hi Kris,
That’s always a difficult balance to find for the translator, one I have wrestled with myself: Rhyme and meter is such an important element of most classical poetry, especially in the romance languages, that it can feel disrespectful to not attempt to replicate some version of it; yet English, particularly modern English, tends to feel stiff and overly formal when rhymed. There are certainly many English versions of this poem by St. John of the Cross.
Your question prompted me to track down a bilingual version I have, and I was reminded that the above version is also rather edited. Willis Barnstone seems to have removed some of the direct references to the Trinity and also changed the poem’s title. The original title is actually “Song of the Soul that Delights in Knowing God by Faith.” Here is a more complete translation from the Spanish, for comparison (though it doesn’t quite soar either, in my opinion… I’m still looking for an ideal English version):
SONG OF THE SOUL THAT DELIGHTS IN KNOWING GOD BY FAITH
by St. John of the Cross
translation by Antonio T. de Nicolas
Well I know the fountain that runs and flows,
though it is night!
This eternal fountain is hidden deep,
Well I know where it has its spring,
Though it is night!
[In this life’s dark night,
Faith has taught where this could fountain lies,
Though it is night!]
Its origin I cannot know, it has none,
And I know all origins come from it,
Though it is night!
And I know there can be nothing more fair,
The heavens and earth drink there,
Though it is night!
And I know it has no bed,
And I know no one can cross its depths,
Though it is night!
It’s clarity is never clouded,
And I know all light shines from it,
Though it is night!
I know her streams swell so abundantly,
They water people, heaven and even hell,
Though it is night!
The current born of this fountain
I know to be wide and might,
Though it is night!
And from these two another stream flows,
And I know neither comes before,
Though it is night!
[I know Three in only one water live,
And each the other feeds,
Though it is night!]
This eternal fountain is hiding from sight
Within this leaving bread to give us life,
Though it is night!
He calls all creatures to this light,
And of this water they drink, though in the dark,
Though it is night!
This living fountain I desire,
I see it here within this living bread,
Thought it is night!
Lovely seasonal share. Neat discussion topic that I have been coming across a bit. While translations aim to be faithful to the original, they cannot be the original and thus must find their purpose. There’s a healthy discussion of this in the introduction to Norton’s anniversary edition of Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet; M.D. Herter’s approach decided it could the English would not sing the same way as Rilke’s German and so focused on preserving the spiritual substance of the metaphors and imagery and kinetics. Critics of this approach argued that preserving the rhyme and meter allowed for better appreciation and understanding of the work’s contribution to the art (and, also that women could not produce such technical scholarship, but that’s rubbish).
Urayoán Noel’s “sueño convulso (seizure dream)” is a wonderful exploration of this idea as he composes English, Spanish, and transligual lines based on what complements the whole which discusses a different entity of the night. https://poets.org/poem/sueno-convulso-seizure-dream. (there’s audio)
And if anyone is a fan of video games as art, Jacob Geller is delightful. In “A Thousand Ways to See a Forest” he looks at the medium itself as one of translation by referencing the several interpretations of a 1300-year-old Wang Wei poem from “Nineteen Ways of looking at Lu Zhai”.
Good morning Ivan, and thank you for this poem of St. John of the Cross. I have not
read his writings, but have heard about him many times. It seems we have to be ready
to take in new learning, and perhaps now will be the time to take in his wisdom.
And thank you for The Thought of the Day, “The Divine is experienced by the heart.
The intellect, at best, can only trail behind and take notes.” I have loved that and
keep it close since you offered it years ago.