WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.470 align:middle line:84% So this could be a poem spoken by a girl who just escapes 00:00:04.470 --> 00:00:06.210 align:middle line:84% from her house at night and goes out 00:00:06.210 --> 00:00:09.360 align:middle line:84% and finds the man she's in love with. 00:00:09.360 --> 00:00:14.970 align:middle line:84% Or it could be about the human soul in search of God. 00:00:14.970 --> 00:00:17.850 align:middle line:84% It's in a way both, and you can take it on either level. 00:00:17.850 --> 00:00:20.340 align:middle line:84% And the greatness of the poem is partly in the fact 00:00:20.340 --> 00:00:25.170 align:middle line:84% that it makes sense on both levels, as good poems have to. 00:00:25.170 --> 00:00:29.880 align:middle line:84% Unless they make complete human sense, unless they fail. 00:00:29.880 --> 00:00:32.490 align:middle line:84% Julian says this about Saint John of the Cross-- 00:00:32.490 --> 00:00:36.030 align:middle line:84% he doesn't violate the laws of our world. 00:00:36.030 --> 00:00:42.570 align:middle line:84% And Gerard Manley Hopkins said of the young Yates of a poem 00:00:42.570 --> 00:00:47.340 align:middle line:84% Yates wrote, poetry, that common sense belongs on Parnassus, 00:00:47.340 --> 00:00:49.700 align:middle line:90% as well as anywhere else. 00:00:49.700 --> 00:00:51.000 align:middle line:90% And I think this is true. 00:00:51.000 --> 00:00:53.880 align:middle line:84% Poetry is basically common sense or it's nothing. 00:00:53.880 --> 00:00:56.850 align:middle line:84% I mean, it follows the way we feel and think. 00:00:56.850 --> 00:00:59.400 align:middle line:84% This doesn't mean it's the kind of common sense 00:00:59.400 --> 00:01:01.350 align:middle line:84% that gets you to the grocery store and back. 00:01:01.350 --> 00:01:03.990 align:middle line:84% It may be the common sense of dreams. 00:01:03.990 --> 00:01:09.750 align:middle line:84% But it's a kind-- it makes sense in a way or it's nothing. 00:01:09.750 --> 00:01:17.040 align:middle line:84% Well, this poem reads, "Once in the dark of night, my longings 00:01:17.040 --> 00:01:22.590 align:middle line:84% cut and raging in love's ray o' windfall of delight. 00:01:22.590 --> 00:01:29.370 align:middle line:84% I slipped unseen away as all my home in a deep slumber lay. 00:01:29.370 --> 00:01:34.890 align:middle line:84% Secure in more than night, close head and up the stairs 00:01:34.890 --> 00:01:36.630 align:middle line:90% a secret way. 00:01:36.630 --> 00:01:41.910 align:middle line:84% Oh, windfall of delight, in the night in feigned array 00:01:41.910 --> 00:01:45.660 align:middle line:84% is all my home in a deep slumber lay. 00:01:45.660 --> 00:01:50.485 align:middle line:84% There in the lucky dark, stealing in secrecy by none 00:01:50.485 --> 00:01:51.840 align:middle line:90% has spied. 00:01:51.840 --> 00:01:58.290 align:middle line:84% Nothing for eyes to mark, no other light, no guide, 00:01:58.290 --> 00:02:03.180 align:middle line:84% but in my heart, that fire would not subside. 00:02:03.180 --> 00:02:09.720 align:middle line:84% That led me on that dazzle truer than high noon is true, 00:02:09.720 --> 00:02:12.990 align:middle line:84% to where they're weighted one I knew. 00:02:12.990 --> 00:02:18.750 align:middle line:84% How well I knew in a place where no one was in view. 00:02:18.750 --> 00:02:21.900 align:middle line:90% Oh dark of night, my guide. 00:02:21.900 --> 00:02:25.980 align:middle line:84% Oh, sweeter than anything sunrise can discover. 00:02:25.980 --> 00:02:31.080 align:middle line:84% Oh, night drawing side to side the loved and lover. 00:02:31.080 --> 00:02:35.730 align:middle line:84% The loved one wholly and solely in the lover. 00:02:35.730 --> 00:02:40.440 align:middle line:84% There in my festive breast, wild for his pleasure garden, 00:02:40.440 --> 00:02:42.000 align:middle line:90% his alone. 00:02:42.000 --> 00:02:47.190 align:middle line:84% The lover remained at rest and I gave all I own, 00:02:47.190 --> 00:02:52.740 align:middle line:84% gave all in air from the cedars softly blown. 00:02:52.740 --> 00:02:57.660 align:middle line:84% Oh, in wind from the wall, as my hand and his hair 00:02:57.660 --> 00:03:00.690 align:middle line:90% moved lovingly at play. 00:03:00.690 --> 00:03:06.810 align:middle line:84% He let soft fingers fall and I swoon dead away wounded, 00:03:06.810 --> 00:03:11.010 align:middle line:90% all senses in oblivion lay. 00:03:11.010 --> 00:03:14.640 align:middle line:84% Quite out of self suspended, my forehead 00:03:14.640 --> 00:03:17.460 align:middle line:90% and the lover's own reclined. 00:03:17.460 --> 00:03:21.930 align:middle line:84% And that way the world ended, with all my cares 00:03:21.930 --> 00:03:28.170 align:middle line:84% entwined among the lilies falling and out of mind." 00:03:28.170 --> 00:03:30.270 align:middle line:84% Al I could be is I think, as I said, 00:03:30.270 --> 00:03:34.440 align:middle line:84% either a girl or the soul speaking to God, equally well. 00:03:34.440 --> 00:03:39.450 align:middle line:90% 00:03:39.450 --> 00:03:42.150 align:middle line:90% The original is a great poem. 00:03:42.150 --> 00:03:47.880 align:middle line:84% The translation maybe gives a little idea, but I don't know. 00:03:47.880 --> 00:03:52.500 align:middle line:84% It's a daring poem in a way as the Song of Songs as daring. 00:03:52.500 --> 00:03:56.160 align:middle line:84% Saint Theresa tells us that she knew 00:03:56.160 --> 00:03:59.790 align:middle line:84% of nuns who had blocked their ears when the Song of Songs 00:03:59.790 --> 00:04:04.500 align:middle line:84% was read because they thought it improper, too physical, and so 00:04:04.500 --> 00:04:05.130 align:middle line:90% on. 00:04:05.130 --> 00:04:07.680 align:middle line:84% And Saint Teresa just says, that shows 00:04:07.680 --> 00:04:11.280 align:middle line:84% how corrupt we human beings are that we take 00:04:11.280 --> 00:04:13.170 align:middle line:90% something like this as bad. 00:04:13.170 --> 00:04:16.320 align:middle line:84% And there have been people who thought that a poem like this 00:04:16.320 --> 00:04:20.459 align:middle line:84% is too physical to be a good religious poem, who 00:04:20.459 --> 00:04:24.570 align:middle line:84% think that the very fact that it could be a human love poem 00:04:24.570 --> 00:04:27.300 align:middle line:84% means that it's not a good religious poem. 00:04:27.300 --> 00:04:31.220 align:middle line:84% Well, Saint John of the Cross did not feel that.