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 wounded with love,
Nor because of the pain of his grief,
Though his heart has been pierced so deep;
But because he thinks he is forgot.
His beautiful shepherdess, so does he think,
Has forgotten him: that thought alone
Overwhelms him with grief in a land not his own,
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 hanging thereby breathed his last,
His heart by love most cruelly torn..
-- St John of the Cross
