Late Have I Loved Thee

Reflecting upon the years that he did nothing to nurture his relationship with God, St. Augustine wrote in his Confessions:

“Late have I loved Thee, O Beauty so ancient and so new; late have I loved thee!
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 did call and cry to me and break open my deafness:
and you did send forth your beams and shine upon me,
and I drew in my breath and I do now pant for you.
I tasted you, and now hunger and thirst for you.
You did touch me, and I have burned for your peace.”