Hushed (2025)

St. Augustine – Confessions – Chapter X – Adapted by Kareem Roustom

25. We were saying then:

If to any
the tumult of the flesh were
hushed, hushed
Dicebamus ergo
sileat tumultus carnis
hushed the images of earth, and waters, and air,
hushed also the poles of heaven,
yea the very soul be hushed to herself,
sileant et poli et ipsa sibi anima sileat,
and by not thinking on self surmount self,
hushed all dreams and imaginary revelations,
sileant somnia et imaginariae revelations
every tongue and
every sign, and
whatsoever exists
only
in the transition,
since if any could hear, all these say,
Non ipsa nos fecimus, sed fecit nos qui manet in aeternum
[We made not ourselves, but He made us that abideth forever–––]

If then having uttered this,
they too
should be hushed
having roused only our ears to Him
who made them, and
He alone speak,
not by them,
but by Himself,
that we may hear His Word, [ut audiamus verbum eius,]
not through any tongue of flesh, [non per linguam carnis]
not Angel’s voice, [neque per vocem angeli]
nor sound of thunder, [nec per sonitum nubis]
nor in the dark riddle of a similitude, [nec per aenigma similitudinis,]

but,
might hear Whom in these things we love,
might hear His Very Self without these,
(as we two now strained ourselves, and in swift thought
touched
on that Eternal Wisdom, which abideth over all ;)––
could this be continued on,
and other visions of kind far unlike
be
withdrawn,
and this one ravish, and
absorb, and
wrap up its beholder
amid these inward
joys,

so that life might be
forever
like that one
moment of understanding which now we sighed after.