Yesterday, worn our with anxieties, away from others
I was in a shady grove, my soul consumed.
For how I do so love this drug for sufferings,
to speak in quiet, me with my own soul...
But privately, my mind in a whirlpool spinning,
I had this sort of battling round of words:
Who was I? Who am I? What shall I be?
I don't know clearly.
Nor can I find one better stocked with wisdom.
But, as through thick fog, I wander
every which way, with nothing, not a dream,
of the things I long for...
What's in fact the good of life? God's light?
But then hateful and jealous darkness
keeps me from it.
Nothing's of any use to me.
And what is there of no use to the wicked?
If only they were equally endowed,
with troubles especially!
I lie helpless. Divine terror has bowed me.
I'm worn out by worries, night and day...
The ache exists for each one of our race...
Stop. Everything is secondary to God.
Give in to reason.
God didn't make me in vain. I am turning
my back upon this song: this thing was from our feeblemindedness.
Now's a fog, but afterwards the Word,
and you'll know all,
whether seeing God, or eaten up by fire.
Now, when the beloved mind had sung for me
these things, it digested its pain.
And late from the shady grove I headed home,
now laughing at this self-estrangement,
then once again
heart in anguish smoldering, from a mind at war.
Saint Gregory Nazianzen (died 390) was a monk, a bishop, and a writer of letter, prayers, and poems.
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