St Francis of Assisi's 'Canticle of Love'

Love of loves, why have you so wounded me? My heart, torn from its dwelling, is consumed with love.
It is on fire, it burns, it finds no resting place, it cannot flee because it is chained up. It is consumed like wax in the fire. Dying it lives. Its languor is sweet, it prays for power to escape for a while and finds itself in the middle of a furnace. Alas, where will this terrible faintness lead me? The burning heat of this fire so stifles me that it is death to live like this.
Before making trial of it, I prayed to Christ asking for his love. I thought that I would find sweetness in his love and that I would delight in his gentle peace so much that no worries would be able to trouble me. But I experienced a torment that I could never have imagined. The heat breaks my heart. I cannot describe how I suffer. I am dying of sweetness and I live deprived of my heart.
My heart wounded by divine love, is no longer my own. I have no judgement, no will, no ability to enjoy myself or sense of feeling. All beauty seems to be like mud and delights and riches are perdition. A tree of love, laden with fruit, is planted in my heart and nourishes me. It transforms me so much that it expels my self-will, intelligence and strength.
I have entirely renounced both the world and myself in order to buy love. If I owned all creation I would gladly trade that for love. But I find that love has deceived me. I have given everything and yet I do not know where I am being drawn to. Love has destroyed me. I am looked at as if I am mad, and because I have been sold, I am no longer worth anything.
The world and the friends who are outside this realm of love tried to bring me back to them. But the person who has once given himself cannot give himself a second time. The servant cannot be the master. A stone will become more soft quickly than love will stop holding me. My complete will is burnt up with love, is united to it, transformed into it and consumed by it.
I shall not be separated from love either by fire or sword. It is impossible to divide this union. Suffering and death cannot rise to the height to which love lures me. Outside this union all created things are restless and through it the soul is raised above everything. O my soul, through what happy chance do you possess such blessings? They come to you from Christ. Therefore embrace him with sweetness.
I am unable to look at any creature without my whole soul praising the creator. Neither heaven no earth holds anything dear to me. Everything is swept away by the love of Christ. The sun’s light seems dark when I behold Christ’s dazzling face. The cherubim, who excel in knowledge, and the seraphim who excel in love both lose their beauty for the person who sees the Lord.
Let no one reproach me if such a love makes me mad. No heart is capable of defending itself or fleeing from these chains of love. Can you imagine a heart not suffering and breaking in such a furnace? Oh, if I could only find a soul to understand me, to take pity on me and know all my heart’s anguish!
Heaven and earth, and all creation cries out to me that I must love. Everything says to me, ‘With all thy heart love the Love which loves thee, love the Love which desires thee, and has created thee to draw thee wholly to himself’ Therefore I desire never to stop drawing on this holy light and this ineffable goodness which is spread around.
If I was able to love more I would, but my heart can love no more. Clearly, I cannot give more than myself, even if I desire to give more than that. I have given everything to possess this Lover who has made a new man of me since I found him. O goodness old and always new, immense Light whose splendour is so sweet!
At the sight of so much beauty I am transported outside myself without knowing where I am being taken to. My heart softens like melted wax and Christ’s form is traced on it. Never before has such a change come over me. I have stripped myself to be clothed in Christ. My heart is transformed and its cry is love. My soul is consumed with heavenly delights. My happily chained soul rushes to the embrace of the Well-beloved. The more my soul beholds Christ’s beauty the more it is beside itself. Rich in Christ it loses everything in him. It no longer recalls anything about itself. It no longer strives to gain anything at all, it is incapable of losing anything and it no longer feels anything.
Transformed in Christ it has almost become Christ. United to God it is entirely divine. God’s magnificent riches surpass all grandeur. Christ reigns supreme in the soul. Can I therefore remain sad and beg a remedy for my faults? I no longer possess an abyss full of sin in me. The old man is dead and has been robbed of all his impurities.
In Christ a new creature is born. The old man is taken away and I have become a new man. But love is so strong that it is as if my heart is split in two by a sword. This fire consumes my soul and my mind. In his beauty, Christ completely allures me. I am on fire when I see him. I utter a cry of love, ‘O Love, the height of my desire, let me die of love!’
For thee, O Love, I waste and languish, I go about uttering cries and seeking thy kisses. When you go my life becomes death and I sigh and pine to find thee. When thou returnest my heart enlarges because in thee it can be entirely transformed. Then delay no more, O Love; be mindful of me, thou holdest me in chains, consume my heart.
Sweet love, consider my trouble. I can bear such ardour no longer. Love has taken possession of me. I no longer know where I am and I no longer know what I am saying or doing. I travel along the road like a lost man. I collapse exhausted from languor. I do not know how to bear such torment. The grief it gives me has ravished my heart.
My heart is enraptured, and I can no longer see that I have to do or what I have not to do. People who observe me ask if a love without deeds can please thee, O Christ. If it does not please you what can I do? My heart is worn out with abundance of Christ’s love. Love, which enfolds me, takes away all action and all initiative. I lose all sense of feeling.
Before, I knew how to speak; now, I am dumb. Before, I could see; now, I am blind. There has never been such a great capture. I am silent, and I speak; I fly, and I am chained; I fall, and I am raised up; I hold, and I am held. All at the same moment I am inside and outside; I pursue and I am pursued. Insensate Love, why dost thou make me mad, why dost thou kill me in such a raging furnace?

Christ
Control your love, you who love me. There is no virtue without order. Since you desire so much to find me renew your soul through virtue. I truly wish that you could call upon me as you love me, although your love must be disciplined. The tree is known by the goodness of its fruit. Law presides everything and gives everything its value.
Everything that I have made has harmony and proportion and is ordained to a particular end. Order guards them. Charity, more than any other virtue, naturally wants to be regulated. Are you, O soul, by your ardour, being foolish? Your fervour is not curbed because it has no control on it.

The soul
O Christ, you have ravished my heart, and you say to my soul ‘Control your love!’ Since I am transformed into you how is it possible for me to master myself. As the iron turns red in the fire and as in the translucent air the sun’s rays lose their form and assume another shape, so is the pure soul entirely transformed with your love.
Since it has love its own virtue it is powerless to act by itself. It becomes this because of its virtue. These are the deeds and fruits it produces. If then it is transformed into your truth and yourself alone, O Christ, whom it is so sweet to love, it is to you and not to myself that my deeds must be imputed. If I cease to please you, O Love, it is because you are no longer pleasing to yourself.
If it is true that I am mad, O supreme Wisdom, that fault is yours. It dates from the day when you wounded me and I made a pact with Love. My self has been taken away and I am clothed in you. I do not know how I was drawn to a new life. I was in utter dejection but love has made me strong. The gates are broken down and I live with you, O Love.
Why have you led me into such a furnace if it is your will that I should keep within bounds? In giving yourself to me without measure you have taken all measure from me. Since I am small you fully satisfy me and as you are great I cannot possess you any more. If this is foolishness, O Love, it comes from you and not from me. You, O Love, have directed me along this path.
You have not forbidden yourself to love. It was love that made you come from heaven to earth, O Love, you showed that you did not think of yourself. In everything, O Love, you showed that you did not think of yourself. At the door of the temple you cried, ‘Let him who has suffered the thirst of love, come and drink; he shall be given a boundless love which will satisfy and console him.’
Wisdom has not prevented you from ceaselessly spreading your love abroad. To save us, O incarnate love, you were born of love and not of flesh. To inflame us with love you went to the cross. When you did not defend yourself before Pilate it was in order to bring about our redemption on the cross of love.
I see that wisdom hid itself and love alone was visible. Power no longer showed itself and strength ceased to give pleasure. The love which poured itself out in this way was great. In his look and in his heart were no other thoughts than loving sentiments. As love was bound on the cross so mankind was embraced by an immense love.
O Jesus, I am so full of love and inebriated with so much sweetness. So who can blame me or reproach me if I live like a madman without any will, feeling or strength? Love has constrained you and robbed you of all your majesty. So who then can prevent me from going mad to embrace you, O my love?
This love which has made me mad really seems to have taken wisdom from you. This love in which I languish has deprived you of all power because of me. I am a captive to love and can resist no longer. The decree has gone out that I shall die of Love. I do not want any other consolation than to die of Love.
Love, Love who has so wounded me, I can only utter one cry, ’Love!’ I am united to you by love and love embraces you in me. Love, Love, who has so wounded me, my heart grows weaker and weaker with love. I am absorbed in you, O Love. Let me abide with you and in your goodness let me die of love.
Love, Love, O Jesus, I am reaching the haven. Love, Love, O Jesus, receive me. Love, Love, O Jesus, come to my help. It is love, love for Jesus which inflames me thus. Love, Love, O Jesus, I am dying of love, let me be near you. O Love, embrace me always; transform me into yourself, O Love, into truth, into supreme charity.
Love, Love, it is the cry of the whole world. Love, Love, it is the cry of everything. Love, Love, such is your depth, that the more one is bound to you the more one desires you. Love, Love, you are the circle that surrounds my heart, he who possesses you love you for ever. You are my food and my clothing. The person who loves you is so happy to possess you, to feel your presence, that he cries unceasingly, ’ Love!’
Love, Love, you make me suffer so much that I cannot bear it any longer. Love, Love, you have such dominion over me. Transform me into yourself. Love, sweet languor; Love, my desire; Love, my delight bind me with love.
Love, Love, my heart is broken and is seriously wounded. Love, draw me towards your beauty as I am ravished by you. Love, Love, do not disdain me as you are my life. Oh, do not forsake me as you have made me faint with love.
In this anguish of Love, Love, Love, O my adorable Jesus, I would die while embracing you, O Jesus, my sweet spouse. Love, Love, I beg for death from you; O pitying Jesus receive me and transform me into thyself. Remember that I am passing away killing myself with love. I do not know where I am, Jesus, my hope, destroy me with love.