Greco-Christian stream·Beguine Mystics·The Strofische Gedichten (Stanzaic Poems) of Hadewijch·II

II

This year, in a short time,
the sap from the roots shall strike upward;
thereby shall, far and wide,
field and herb take on their leaf.
Of this we have sure expectation:
the birds become glad.
He who goes in Love to strife,
he shall soon overcome,
if only he does not turn aside.

Who does not spare for high Love,
he is wise in all his works;
Love is Maiden and Queen
who makes many of high spirit,
so that he, above all her good,
puts to it his strength and senses;
where Love knows the work,
how she shall reward him at first
— he is the one Love overcomes.³

But therefore Love is Lady and Maiden:
that she is the mother of all virtue.
She is bearing, and bears alone the troth
through which all you who love may be empowered.
She alone has gladdened us,
and bettered all sorrow.
I pray that she behold us
and make the youth to grow,
that she fulfill all Love's troth to us.

How sweet is Love in her nature,
that she overcomes every other power.
He who loves suffers heavy hazard
before he knows in Love's manners
that he is by her fully loved;
so he tastes more bitter and sour;
he may not endure an hour
before Love binds him wholly into Love
and into the fire of fruition.

Whoever yearns for the un-fruition in Love,
he shall overcome all his trouble.
He cannot die whom Love has reached
— her name, Amor, is from death;
he who did what Love bade
and failed not therein,
she is the bliss of every matter:
Love is the living bread,
and above all pleasures in tasting.

My new songs
are altogether brought to great lamenting
— I who have sung long
and of Love's beautiful heart-might.
Though I have wrought too little,
it does me sore woe and anguish
that I do not encompass
the unconquered might
in the fruition of Love's constraint.

I may well of the fine Love
henceforth be silent my days more.
Where I was wont to be glad,
in singing and in springing in the time before,
when her rich teaching
made joy appear to me,
there I now endure pain
and from-the-heart suffer,
of which I age and waste.

Thus has Love's pain wasted me,
that I am for nothing more good —
she who first led me to her school,
where I suckled her wise wonders,
and she since drew that away
and from me much has hidden.
Yet would I gladly wander still,
for Love did not lie
in what she commanded me.

Would Love give me new days
who am to her become so old —
then would I be silent of my lament
that now is so manifold;
and let her stout-free life
have-her-way at what is now to me a waging.
How gladly would I see
that Love work her free might
upon me as it pleased her.

Though it grieves me so very much
that I know myself a Love-miserable woman,
Love does all her friends honor
who with troth are ready to her,
so that they in joy and grief
understand her rich teaching;
those who do this work without turning,
and Love wholly into Love embrace —
they remain in her rich domain.

As the fair rose to us
comes out of the thorn with the dew,
so shall he who loves, through every evil,
with trust withstand her storms.
He shall, freely, without a doubt,
grow through all damage.
The faint-of-heart
has done his part too soon,
where the amorose are free.

Who would embrace Love
must shun all the loose-of-tongue,
though now her speech be sweet
— one shall soon know
that false is her show.

Song III

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