I Came To Love You Too Late

I came to love you too late, Oh Beauty, so ancient and so new. Yes, I came to love you too late. What did I know? You were inside me, and I was out of my body and mind, looking for you. I drove like an ugly madman against the beautiful things andbeings you made. You were in fact inside me, but I was not inside you. Those same things kept me at some distance from you, even though those things, had they not been inside you, would not have existed at all. You called to me and cried to me; you broke the bowl of my deafness; you uncovered your beams, and threw them at me; you rejected my blindness; you blew afragrant wind on me, and I sucked in my breath and wanted you; I tasted you and now I want you as I want food and water; you touched me, and I have been burning ever since to have your peace.

St. Augustine