Spanish “Golden Age” poet Fray Luis de León (1527-1591) spent his adult life as an Augustinian monk and, except for the four years during which he was imprisoned by the Inquisition, a professor at the University of Salamanca. He is the author of significant theological works, notably The Names of Christ, and of a small but profound body of lyric poems. The poem translated here draws on his experience of literal imprisonment, employing it as a metaphor for spiritual liberation.

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