INTO this dark night souls begin to enter when God draws them forth from the state of beginners ...

When prayers go dry on the tongue, and any sense of God in the world is lost, it seems the spiritual seeker has nowhere to turn. This is the dark night of the soul that the great sixteenth-century saint John of the Cross experienced when he could no longer feel God's presence and when prayer and spiritual practice no longer inspired him.

At the link below you'll find Classic Christian books in electronic format. 

Dark Night of the Soul by Saint John of the Cross

This electronic edition was scanned in 1994 from an uncopyrighted 1959 Image Books third edition of the Dark Night. The entire text except for the preface and some of the footnotes have been reproduced. (Plain text version)

Find more at the main site for Christian Classics, http://www.ccel.org/