At last we can watch, even in these poems of the Dark, the Saint (St John of the Cross), holding in one hand the supreme substantial vision, and in the other created loveliness, and friends with both, since neither was held by him for his own worship:

On the flowers of my bosom
Kept whole for Him alone,
There He repose and slept;
And I caressed Him, and the waving
Of the cedars fanned Him.

As His hair floated in the breeze
That blew from the turret;
He struck me on the neck
With His gentle hand,
And all my senses left me.

I continued in oblivion lost—
My head was resting on my Love—
Lost to all things and myself,
And, amid the lilies forgotten,
Threw all my cares away.

‘Upon God’s Holy Hills; the Guides St Anthony of Egypt, St Bruno of Cologne, St John of the Cross’ by C.C. Martindale