Now my years are spent in lamentation...

Now my years are spent in lamentation, and you, Lord, my eternal Father, are my only solace. I have broken up into times, whose order I know not, and in tumultuous changes my recollections, the innermost sinews of my soul, are being torn apart, until I should flow together again in you, purified and melted in the fire of your love.

—St. Augustine, Confessions (398)