late have I loved thee

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Late have I loved thee, O Beauty so ancient and so new;
late have I loved thee! For behold, thou wert within me and I outside;
and I sought thee outside and in my unloveliness
fell upon these lovely things that thou hast made.
Thou wert with me and I was not with thee.
I was kept from thee by those things,
yet had they not been in thee, they would not have been at all.
Thou didst call and cry to me and break open my deafness. . . .
I tasted thee, and now hunger and thirst for thee;
thou didst touch me,
and now I burn for thy peace.



~ Saint Augustine of Hippo
from Confessions

Augustine concludes the text by exploring an allegorical interpretation of Genesis, through which he discovers the Trinity and the significance of God's creation of man. Based on his interpretation, he espouses the significance of rest as well as the divinity of Creation: "For, then shalt Thou rest in us, in the same way that Thou workest in us now [...] So, we see these things which Thou hast made, because they exist, but they exist because Thou seest them. We see, externally, that they exist, but internally, that they are good; Thou hast seen them made, in the same place where Thou didst see them as yet to be made."

 

~ comments from Wikipedia

 

 

 

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