Oh, Happy Chance!

On a dark night, when the world was fast asleep,

I left the house, where the shadows linger deep.

No eye to see me, no token in my hand,

Kindled by a yearning I could not understand.

The quiet walls were resting, the heavy doors were still,

As I stepped into the midnight to climb the sacred hill.

In the sweet and bitter twilight, the milk began to dry,

The comforts of the senses were stripped beneath the sky.

The prayer that once was easy turned to desert dust and stone,

A passive purgation where the soul must walk alone.

A mother weans her infant, though the child may cry in vain,

God pulls away the sweetness to break the sensory chain.

Oh, happy chance! Oh, night that guided me!

More lovely than the dawn upon the silent sea!

In the deep and holy darkness, where the human lights grow dim,

The secret ladder holds me, as I lose myself in Him.

Now the second night is falling, the night of spirit wakes,

Where the intellect is blinded and the stubborn will breaks.

It feels like a rejection, a heavy, wounding ray,

As the fire burns the old man and melts the dross away.

You strip the mind of tracking, You empty out the store,

So the vessel can be filled with what it never held before.

Oh, happy chance! Oh, night that guided me!

More lovely than the dawn upon the silent sea!

In the deep and holy darkness, where the human lights grow dim,

The secret ladder holds me, as I lose myself in Him.

Without a guide or lantern, without an earthly spark,

There was a fire burning inside the blinding dark.

It guided me more surely than the blinding light of noon,

To the flowery breast where He slept beneath the moon.

The river of God is flowing, though the senses feel the drought,

Love is only proven when the certainty goes out.

He leaned against my shoulder, He touched my weary hair,

The cedar trees were blowing a cold wind through the air.

My senses were suspended, my forehead felt His breath,

A transformation deeper than the agony of death.

Oh, happy chance! Oh, night that guided me!

More lovely than the dawn upon the silent sea!

In the deep and holy darkness, where the human lights grow dim,

The secret ladder holds me, as I lose myself in Him.

Yes, I lose myself in Him...

My cares dropped like the lilies, no longer intertwined.

The house is at rest.

The night is done.

The soul and the Beloved...

Are one.