For what more miserable than a miserable being who commiserates
not himself; weeping the death of Dido for love to Aeneas, but weeping
not his own death for want of love to Thee, O God. Thou light of my
heart, Thou bread of my inmost soul, Thou Power who givest vigour to
my mind, who quickenest my thoughts, I loved Thee not. I committed
fornication against Thee, and all around me thus fornicating there
echoed "Well done! well done!" for the friendship of this world is
fornication against Thee; and "Well done! well done!" echoes on till
one is ashamed not to he thus a man. And for all this I wept not, I
who wept for Dido slain, and "seeking by the sword a stroke and
wound extreme," myself seeking the while a worse extreme, the
extremest and lowest of Thy creatures, having forsaken Thee, earth
passing into the earth. And if forbid to read all this, I was
grieved that I might not read what grieved me. Madness like this is
thought a higher and a richer learning, than that by which I learned
to read and write.
But now, my God, cry Thou aloud in my soul; and let Thy truth tell
me, "Not so, not so.
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