Poi ch’io gustai, Gesú, la tua dolcezza
The Taste of Divine Sweetness
The soul finds all worldly delights bitter and insufficient compared to the burning, satisfying love of Jesus.
Since I tasted your sweetness, Jesus, my soul no longer prizes any other delight of the blind world. Ever since this burning torch of your charity kindled my afflicted heart, nothing delights or pleases me anymore; every other good seems pain and sorrow to me. Every other peace is tribulation and war, so inflamed am I with your love. Nothing else satisfies me or gives me rest, nor is the thirst quenched except only at your blessed fountain.1
The Pelican's Sacrifice
The poet reflects on the Incarnation and the sacrificial love of Christ, the Pelican, as the source of his own devotion.
What made me fall so deeply in love with you was your love, O Pelican; for to give life to your children you give yourself to death, and to make me divine you have become human; you have taken on a servant's condition and lot so that I may not be a servant or live in vain; since your love is so measureless, rather than be ungrateful I love you so much that I hold everything else in contempt.23
Longing for Constant Union
The soul seeks total focus on God, lamenting only the moments when its own failings cause this sweet thought to flee.
When my soul rests in you, it puts every other false good out of mind; this troubled, wearisome life finds contentment only in this longing. Nor can it think of anything else, or speak or see anything but you, God; only one sorrow is left to it, and that consumes it: the thought of how far the sweet thought flees from it through its own failing.4
A Prayer for Perpetual Fire
The chapter concludes with a petition for divine light and the enduring fire of love to consume the soul entirely.
May your sweetness conquer all my bitterness; may your light brighten my darkness—so that your love, so sweet and dear to me, never leaves me in the time to come. Since you did not spare your blood, do not be hard with me about this grace either: let your sweet fire always burn in my heart, until little by little nothing remains in my breast but you.5
Read the original Latin
Poi ch’io gustai, Gesú, la tua dolcezza, l’anima piú non prezza del mondo cieco alcun altro diletto.
Da poi ch’accese quest’ardente face della tua caritá l’afflitto core, nessuna cosa piú m’aggrada o piace, ogni altro ben mi par pena e dolore; tribulazion e guerra ogni altra pace, tanto infiammato son del tuo amore; null’altro mi contenta o dá quiete, né si spegne la sete, se non solo al tuo fonte benedetto.
Quel che di te m’innamorò sí forte, fu la tua caritá, o Pellicano; ché, per dar vita a’ figli, a te dái morte e per farmi divin se’ fatto umano; preso hai di servo condizione e sorte, perch’io servo non sia o viva invano; poi che ’l tuo amore è tanto smisurato, per non essere ingrato tanto amo te, ch’ogni cosa ho in dispetto.
Quando l’anima mia teco si posa, ogni altro falso ben mette in oblio: la tribulata vita faticosa sol si contenta per questo disio. Né può pensare ad alcun’altra cosa, né parlare o veder se non te, Dio; solo un dolor li resta, che la strugge: il pensar quanto fugge da lei il dolce pensier per suo difetto.
Vinca la tua dolcezza ogni mio amaro, allumini il tuo lume il mio oscuro; sí che ’l tuo amor, che m’è sí dolce e caro, mai da me non si parta nel futuro. Poi che non fusti del tuo sangue avaro, di questa grazia ancor non m’esser duro: arda sempre il mio cor tuo dolce foco, tanto che a poco a poco altri che tu non resti nel mio petto.
Notes
- 1 ↩Italian caritá rendered as charity (theological virtue / Christ's self-giving love) to keep it distinct from amore (love) later in the same stanza; love would also be faithful under default amor/charitas policy.
- 2 ↩Medieval Christological image of the pelican feeding its young with its own blood; here an address to Christ, not a literal bird.
- 3 ↩Rendered as love (default for caritas/charity); the stanza also uses amore for the same self-giving love.
- 4 ↩"per suo difetto" rendered as "through its own failing" (the soul's defect/fault that drives the sweet thought of God away), not as mere misfortune.
- 5 ↩"non fusti del tuo sangue avaro" = you were not stingy/sparing with your blood (Passion/Cross), grounding the plea for further grace.
Spiritual Lauds companion
Never lose the rhythm again
Chosen Portion delivers your morning, midday and night office to your phone — the Hours, without the bells.
Chosen Portion is a modern Book of Hours: it turns the fixed-hour structure this collection preserves into scheduled, tappable daily prayer on your phone.
- Three daily prayer moments scheduled around your real calendar, not a monastery's
- Psalms and historic prayers sequenced for you — no page-flipping or decision fatigue
- A visible streak of completed offices, so the rhythm compounds instead of collapsing