Loved & Beloved: Merrill, St. John of the Cross & Marc Chagall

...Now come days
When lover and beloved know
That love is what they are and where they go.
Each learns to read at length the other's gaze.
James Merrill, "A Poem of Summer's End"

I abandoned and forgot myself;
Laying my face on my beloved;
All things ceased; I went out from myself
Leaving my cares forgotten among the lilies.
St. John of the Cross, "The Dark Night"

James Merrill, Collected Poems (Knopf, 2001)
St. John of the Cross, The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross. Trans. Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodriguez. (ICS Publication, 1991)