BOOK II


I will now call to mind my past foulness, and the carnal corruptions
of my soul; not because I love them, but that I may love Thee, O my
God. For love of Thy love I do it; reviewing my most wicked ways in
the very bitterness of my remembrance, that Thou mayest grow sweet
unto me (Thou sweetness never failing, Thou blissful and assured
sweetness); and gathering me again out of that my dissipation, wherein
I was torn piecemeal, while turned from Thee, the One Good, I lost
myself among a multiplicity of things. For I even burnt in my youth
heretofore, to be satiated in things below; and I dared to grow wild
again, with these various and shadowy loves: my beauty consumed
away, and I stank in Thine eyes; pleasing myself, and desirous to
please in the eyes of men.

And what was it that I delighted in, but to love, and be loved?
but I kept not the measure of love, of mind to mind, friendship's
bright boundary: but out of the muddy concupiscence of the flesh,
and the bubblings of youth, mists fumed up which beclouded and
overcast my heart, that I could not discern the clear brightness of
love from the fog of lustfulness. Both did confusedly boil in me,
and hurried my unstayed youth over the precipice of unholy desires,
and sunk me in a gulf of flagitiousnesses. Thy wrath had gathered over
me, and I knew it not. I was grown deaf by the clanking of the chain
of my mortality, the punishment of the pride of my soul, and I strayed
further from Thee, and Thou lettest me alone, and I was tossed
about, and wasted, and dissipated, and I boiled over in my
fornications, and Thou heldest Thy peace, O Thou my tardy joy! Thou
then heldest Thy peace, and I wandered further and further from