The Reformation · poem c. 1578; commentary 1584
The Spiritual Canticle
John of the Cross · 1542–1591
What it is
A poem in the voice of a bride searching the woods for her beloved, begun in a prison cell, with a long commentary written for the nuns who asked what it meant.
Why it lasted
Regarded as among the finest poetry in the Spanish language, and written by a man his own order had locked in a closet for nine months.
Scripture it works from
Where to read it
This work is in the public domain and can be read in full, free, at the archives below. The Library catalogues it; it does not host the text.
These open a search on each archive rather than a direct link, which is the honest way to point at an edition nobody here has checked line by line.
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