Resignation

Resignation

By José María Pemán -- Spanish poet (1897 - 1981)

Translated from the Spanish by Roberto Hope

Most blessed be You, oh Lord!
for Your kindness without bound
because out of love You place 
along with thistles of throes
roses of resignedness.

How sad my wandering is,
concealed, I carry in my bosom
of my repentance a groan
but carry in my lips a song
not to let my sadness show.

Only You, my God and Lord,
You, who hurts me out of love
You, who with an immense love
tries with so much greater pain 
those souls who You love the most

You alone will get to know 
that I only want to tell
my secret suffering about
to whom it can understand
and is able to console.

Most blessed be You, oh Lord!
for Your kindness without bound
because out of love You place 
along with thistles of throes
roses of resignedness.

The pain that should ever come
will be in good time well received
Let it come, since God so wishes.
What does seeing myself hurt matter
if God is the one who hurts me?

I do not complain, my Lord,
I know suffering pain is joy
if one suffers it for love,
an affliction is delight
if it's endured out of love.

I want to suffer, my Lord,
I want out of love to enjoy
the sweetness of the distress
make an altar of my life,
of love to make sacrifice.

To live without woes of love
is a sad and somber living
like the water of a river
which, finding no trees or flowers,
through a barren wasteland flows.

Life with artificial happiness
I do not envy you, no,
that the day my life were so
trembling of horror I'd say:

God has my life but forgotten!
Do not flee, passions and torments
with the frailness of a coward,
nor seek after loves not honest
which die just as do the flowers
in the sinkng of the nightfall.

Knowing how to suffer and making
the soul most robust and sturdy,
is what matters most to know:
the science of bearing pain
is the science of good living.

That is why, my God and Lord,
because it's for love You hurt me
because with an immense love
You try with much greater pain 
those souls that You love the most,
because suffering is healing
the wounds afflicting the heart
because I know You shall give me
consolation and resignedness
to the measure of my pain,
for Your goodness and your love,
since You will it and command it,
because all my pain is Yours...
Blessed be the hand, my Lord,
with which You have deigned to hurt me!