The Living Flame of LoveThe stanzas

O Living Flame of Love,
That woundest tenderly
My soul in its inmost depth!
As thou art no longer grievous,
Perfect thy work, if it be thy will,
Break the web of this sweet encounter,
It

O sweet burn! O delicious wound! O tender hand! O gentle touch! Savouring of everlasting life, And paying the whole debt, By slaying Thou hast changed death into life.

O lamps of fire, In the splendours of which The deep caverns of sense, Dim and dark, With unwonted brightness Give light and warmth together to their Beloved!

How gently and how lovingly Thou wakest in my bosom, Where alone Thou secretly dwellest; And in Thy sweet breathing Full of grace and glory, How tenderly Thou fillest me with Thy love. EXPLANATION OF THE FIRST STANZA THE bride of Christ, now feeling herself to be all on fire in the divine union, and that rivers of living waters are flowing from her belly, as Christ our Lord said, they would flow from the like souls, believes that, as she is [STAN. I.] _ OF LOVE. transformed in God with such vehemence and so intimately possessed by Him, so richly adorned with gifts and graces, she is near unto bliss, and that a slender veil only separates her from it. Seeing, too, that this sweet flame of love burning within her, each time it touches her | makes her as it were glorious with foretaste of glory, so much so that whenever it absorbs and assails her, it seems to be admitting her to everlasting life, and to rend the veil of her mortality, she addresses herself, with a great longing, to the flame, which is the Holy Ghost, and prays Him to destroy her mortal life in this sweet encounter, and bestow upon her in reality what He seems about to give, namely, perfect glory, crying: ‘O living flame of love.’