Late have I loved you, O Beauty so ancient and so new;
Late have I loved you.
For behold you were within me, and I outside;
And I sought you outside
And in my unloveliness fell upon those lovely things
that you have made.
You were with me, and I was not with you.
I was kept from you by those things,
Yet had they not been in you, they would not have been at all.
You called and cried to me to break open my deafness
And you sent forth your beams and you shone upon me
And chased away my blindness.
You breathed fragrance upon me,
And I drew in my breath and do now pant for you.
I tasted you, and now hunger and thirst for you.
You touched me, and I have burned for your peace.
Saint Augustine of Hippo