Late have I loved You, Beauty so old and so new:
late have I loved You. And, see, You were within me
and I was in the external world and sought You there,
and in my unlovely state
I plunged into those lovely created things You made.

You were with me, and I was not with You.
The lovely things kept me far from You,
though if they did not have existence in You,
they had no existence at all.

You called and cried out loud and shattered my deafness.
You were radiant and resplendent,
You put to flight my blindness.
You were fragrant, and I drew in my breath
and now pant after You.

I tasted You, and I feel but hunger and thirst for You.
You touched me, and I am set on fire
to attain that peace which is Yours.

+-----+-----+

Give me one who loves, and he feels what I am saying.

Give me one who desires, give me one who hungers,
give me one traveling and thirsting in this solitude
and sighing for the fountain of an eternal homeland,
give me such a one and he knows what I am saying.

But if I speak to someone coldly unresponsive,
he knows not what I speak.

+-----+-----+

[Saint Augustine Confessions, translated by Henry Chadwick (Oxford University Press, 1991), pp. 201 and Saint Augustine: Tractates on the Gospel of John 11-27, translated by John W. Rettig, The Father of the Church 79 (Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, 1988) tr. 26.4, p. 263]