Dark Night of the Soul

Poem 721 (“Behind Me—dips Eternity”) by Emily Dickinson (1861)

An example of the understated, quiet urgency and frank spiritualism typical of the mystical vision, this Dickinson poem, unlike St. John of the Cross’s, is neither tied to nor limited by an institutional Church’s doctrine. The poem uses the evocative vocabulary of the spirit to suggest the power and energy of the soul, the soul not defined by or contained within any theology.

“Nada Te Turbe” by Teresa of Ávila (c. 1570)

The mystic most aligned to John’s Catholic sensibility and one of his closet associates in his campaign to reform the institutional Catholic Church, Teresa here offers a direct advocacy of how to live with the soul. The title translates “Let Nothing Disturb You,” and the poem gently urges the reader to ignore the earthly distractions the soul cannot afford and to trust in God. There is a translation by American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow some three centuries later.

“Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” by Walt Whitman (1860)

A meditation on time and how time can be transcended into eternity, this Whitman poem uses as metaphor the crossing back and forth of the ferry taking workers into Manhattan.