Spiritual Song

    Spiritual Song

(being a translation of CANT ESPIRITUAL
by the Catalan poet Joan [= John] Maragall,
written 1911, shortly before his death.)


If the world’s already so beautiful, Lord, if one sees it
with that peace of yours within this eye of ours,
what more can you give us in another life?

Therefore I’m  jealous of this face, these eyes,
this body that you have given me, Lord,  this heart
that throbs here always…and  fear so much to die!

With what other senses will you make me see
this blue sky-heaven that stands upon the mountains,
and the measureless sea, and the sun that shines on all things?
Give in these senses eternal peace, and I
will wish for no more heaven than this blue sky.

That man who to no moment would cry “Halt!”
(except the moment which might bring him death)
I don’t understand him, Lord; I who would say
“halt” to so many moments of each day
to make them all eternal in my heart!...
Or is this “making eternal” already death?
But then, ongoing Life, what would that be?
No more than the shade of time that passes, falls,
the illusion of the far off and the near,
the count of the much and little, the cheap and dear,
deceiving count, since all that’s already All.

Well, be it so! This world, whatever it be,
so various, so vast, so fugitive,
this land of earth, with all it makes to live,
is my native fatherland, Lord; and could it not be
also a native fatherland of heaven?
I am a man, and human is my measure
for all I could believe in or could hope:
if my faith and hope stop here and go no further,
will you count that a fault in me, beyond?
Beyond, I see sky-heaven and the stars,
and even up there I’d wish to be a man:
if you’ve made all objects to my eyes so fair,
if you’ve made my eyes, my senses for them here,
why shut them now, looking for another “like”?
If for me like this world no other shows!
That you are, Lord, I know; but where, who knows?
All that I look at, looks like you to me…
Let me believe then, you are here to see.
And when that hour shall come, that hour of fear
in which these human eyes of mine close here,
open for me, Lord, greater ones, create
me eyes your boundless face to contemplate:
Let my death be a greater birth-time there!