Because relying on any single explanation of the journey toward the soul’s enlightenment risks simplifying the entire mystical experience, given the reach and range of mystical literatures in virtually every organized religion, St. John of the Cross’s poem uses four stages to suggest the movement of the soul toward union with God: dilemma (Stanzas I-III); journey (IV-V); revelation (VI-VII); and resolution (VIII).

In the opening three stanzas, John sets the stage for the journey to enlightenment. In aggressively symbolic language—using the allegorical figures of the darkness and night—the poet lays out the dilemma of a Christian soul during its time on earth, the time of sorrowful pilgrimage through the pain, sufferings, and disappointments inevitable in the world without God’s illuminating and sustaining presence. Because the poet does not want to make the poem about himself alone, the poem draws on the suggestive allegorical power of a “dark night” (Line 1), representing any condition of suffering.

Against the house in which others sleep quietly, that is, a world content to be in the darkness, John, as speaker, feels too keenly the agonies of this night. Yet he exclaims, “O, happy lot!” (Lines 3, 8), a cry of joy or good fortune at feeling his soul stir.