Love beyond all telling (from Self-Annihilation and Charity Lead the Soul...)
by Jacopone da Todi (Jacopone Benedetti)English version by Serge and Elizabeth Hughes
Original Language Italian
Love beyond all telling,
Goodness beyond imagining,
Light of infinite intensity
Glows in my heart.
I once thought that reason
Had led me to You,
And that through feeling
I sensed Your presence,
Caught a glimpse of You in similitudes,
Knew You in Your perfection.
I know now that I was wrong,
That that truth was flawed.
Light beyond metaphor,
Why did You deign to come into this darkness?
Your light does not illumine those who think they see You
And believe they sound Your depths.
Night, I know now, is day,
Virtue no more to be found.
He who witnesses Your splendor
Can never describe it.
On achieving their desired end
Human powers cease to function,
And the soul sees that what it thought was right
Was wrong. A new exchange occurs
At that point where all light disappears;
A new and unsought state is needed:
The soul has what it did not love,
And is stripped of all it possessed, no matter how dear.
In God the spiritual faculties
Come to their desired end,
Lose all sense of self and self-consciousness,
And are swept into infinity.
The soul, made new again,
Marveling to find itself
In that immensity, drowns.
How this comes about it does not know.
 | -- from Jacopone da Todi: Lauds (Classics of Western Spirituality), Translated by Serge and Elizabeth Hughes |
<<Previous Poem | More Poems by Jacopone da Todi (Jacopone Benedetti) | Next Poem >>
/ Image by Sacha Fernandez /
View All Poems by Jacopone da Todi (Jacopone Benedetti)
Love beyond all telling,
Goodness beyond imagining,
Light of infinite intensity
Glows in my heart.
Too often statements like this can sound like a formula of religious piety, but it is more than that. These are the direct experiences of the mystic. The heart grows warm and blossoms, opening until it seems to encompass all of creation. This is not just an idea or some philosophical notion -- it is felt tangibly in the body as well as the soul. Love floods in, and a sense of utter harmony, rightness, the "goodness" of being. Often one witnesses a dazzling golden-white light like a radiant ocean that flows through everything, showing the multiplicity of creation to secretly be a shining unity.
It is this that Jacopone da Todi is writing of.
I once thought that reason
Had led me to You,
And that through feeling
I sensed your presence...
I know now that I was wrong,
That that truth was flawed.
These verses are a call to the religious minded to not be content with thinking one has found the truth on assertions of belief alone. ("Your light does not illumine those who think they see You / And believe they sound Your depths.") Or even to imagine that it is felt through elevated or refined emotions. He is proclaiming that the real truth is somehow more direct and surprising than that. All mental conceptualization is limited by the intellect and imagination, yet the reality we seek is beyond the thinking mind's ability to conceive of...
Light beyond metaphor...
He who witnesses Your splendor
Can never describe it.
Here, words fail. The mind can only become a mute witness.
The very notion of self melts amidst that immensity...
In God the spiritual faculties
Come to their desired end,
Lose all sense of self and self-consciousness,
And are swept into infinity.
The soul, made new again,
Marveling to find itself
In that immensity, drowns.
How this comes about it does not know.
Recommended Books: Jacopone da Todi (Jacopone Benedetti)
