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; 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 shouted to me to break open my deafness: You sent forth Your beams and shined upon me and chased away my blindness: You breathed fragrance upon me, and I drew in breath and now I pant for You: I tasted You, and now hunger and thirst for You: You touched me, and I burn for You peace.

[Augustine of Hippo, Confessions, Book 10]