Four Quartets 2: East Coker
I
In
my
beginning
is
my
end.
In
succession
Houses
rise
and
fall,
crumble,
are
extended,
Are
removed,
destroyed,
restored,
or
in
their
place
Is
an
open
field,
or
a
factory,
or
a
by-pass.
Old
stone
to
new
building,
old
timber
to
new
fires,
Old
fires
to
ashes,
and
ashes
to
the
earth
Which
is
already
flesh,
fur
and
faeces,
Bone
of
man
and
beast,
cornstalk
and
leaf.
Houses
live
and
die:
there
is
a
time
for
building
And
a
time
for
living
and
for
generation
And
a
time
for
the
wind
to
break
the
loosened
pane
And
to
shake
the
wainscot
where
the
field-mouse
trots
And
to
shake
the
tattered
arras
woven
with
a
silent
motto.
In
my
beginning
is
my
end.
Now
the
light
falls
Across
the
open
field,
leaving
the
deep
lane
Shuttered
with
branches,
dark
in
the
afternoon,
Where
you
lean
against
a
bank
while
a
van
passes,
And
the
deep
lane
insists
on
the
direction
Into
the
village,
in
the
electric
heat
Hypnotised.
In
a
warm
haze
the
sultry
light
Is
absorbed,
not
refracted,
by
grey
stone.
The
dahlias
sleep
in
the
empty
silence.
Wait
for
the
early
owl.
In
that
open
field
If
you
do
not
come
too
close,
if
you
do
not
come
too
close,
On
a
summer
midnight,
you
can
hear
the
music
Of
the
weak
pipe
and
the
little
drum
And
see
them
dancing
around
the
bonfire
The
association
of
man
and
woman
In
daunsinge,
signifying
matrimonie—
A
dignified
and
commodiois
sacrament.
Two
and
two,
necessarye
coniunction,
Holding
eche
other
by
the
hand
or
the
arm
Whiche
betokeneth
concorde.
Round
and
round
the
fire
Leaping
through
the
flames,
or
joined
in
circles,
Rustically
solemn
or
in
rustic
laughter
Lifting
heavy
feet
in
clumsy
shoes,
Earth
feet,
loam
feet,
lifted
in
country
mirth
Mirth
of
those
long
since
under
earth
Nourishing
the
corn.
Keeping
time,
Keeping
the
rhythm
in
their
dancing
As
in
their
living
in
the
living
seasons
The
time
of
the
seasons
and
the
constellations
The
time
of
milking
and
the
time
of
harvest
The
time
of
the
coupling
of
man
and
woman
And
that
of
beasts.
Feet
rising
and
falling.
Eating
and
drinking.
Dung
and
death.
Dawn
points,
and
another
day
Prepares
for
heat
and
silence.
Out
at
sea
the
dawn
wind
Wrinkles
and
slides.
I
am
here
Or
there,
or
elsewhere.
In
my
beginning.
II
What
is
the
late
November
doing
With
the
disturbance
of
the
spring
And
creatures
of
the
summer
heat,
And
snowdrops
writhing
under
feet
And
hollyhocks
that
aim
too
high
Red
into
grey
and
tumble
down
Late
roses
filled
with
early
snow?
Thunder
rolled
by
the
rolling
stars
Simulates
triumphal
cars
Deployed
in
constellated
wars
Scorpion
fights
against
the
Sun
Until
the
Sun
and
Moon
go
down
Comets
weep
and
Leonids
fly
Hunt
the
heavens
and
the
plains
Whirled
in
a
vortex
that
shall
bring
The
world
to
that
destructive
fire
Which
burns
before
the
ice-cap
reigns.
That
was
a
way
of
putting
it—not
very
satisfactory:
A
periphrastic
study
in
a
worn-out
poetical
fashion,
Leaving
one
still
with
the
intolerable
wrestle
With
words
and
meanings.
The
poetry
does
not
matter.
It
was
not
(to
start
again)
what
one
had
expected.
What
was
to
be
the
value
of
the
long
looked
forward
to,
Long
hoped
for
calm,
the
autumnal
serenity
And
the
wisdom
of
age?
Had
they
deceived
us
Or
deceived
themselves,
the
quiet-voiced
elders,
Bequeathing
us
merely
a
receipt
for
deceit?
The
serenity
only
a
deliberate
hebetude,
The
wisdom
only
the
knowledge
of
dead
secrets
Useless
in
the
darkness
into
which
they
peered
Or
from
which
they
turned
their
eyes.
There
is,
it
seems
to
us,
At
best,
only
a
limited
value
In
the
knowledge
derived
from
experience.
The
knowledge
imposes
a
pattern,
and
falsifies,
For
the
pattern
is
new
in
every
moment
And
every
moment
is
a
new
and
shocking
Valuation
of
all
we
have
been.
We
are
only
undeceived
Of
that
which,
deceiving,
could
no
longer
harm.
In
the
middle,
not
only
in
the
middle
of
the
way
But
all
the
way,
in
a
dark
wood,
in
a
bramble,
On
the
edge
of
a
grimpen,
where
is
no
secure
foothold,
And
menaced
by
monsters,
fancy
lights,
Risking
enchantment.
Do
not
let
me
hear
Of
the
wisdom
of
old
men,
but
rather
of
their
folly,
Their
fear
of
fear
and
frenzy,
their
fear
of
possession,
Of
belonging
to
another,
or
to
others,
or
to
God.
The
only
wisdom
we
can
hope
to
acquire
Is
the
wisdom
of
humility:
humility
is
endless.
The
houses
are
all
gone
under
the
sea.
The
dancers
are
all
gone
under
the
hill.
III
O
dark
dark
dark.
They
all
go
into
the
dark,
The
vacant
interstellar
spaces,
the
vacant
into
the
vacant,
The
captains,
merchant
bankers,
eminent
men
of
letters,
The
generous
patrons
of
art,
the
statesmen
and
the
rulers,
Distinguished
civil
servants,
chairmen
of
many
committees,
Industrial
lords
and
petty
contractors,
all
go
into
the
dark,
And
dark
the
Sun
and
Moon,
and
the
Almanach
de
Gotha
And
the
Stock
Exchange
Gazette,
the
Directory
of
Directors,
And
cold
the
sense
and
lost
the
motive
of
action.
And
we
all
go
with
them,
into
the
silent
funeral,
Nobody's
funeral,
for
there
is
no
one
to
bury.
I
said
to
my
soul,
be
still,
and
let
the
dark
come
upon
you
Which
shall
be
the
darkness
of
God.
As,
in
a
theatre,
The
lights
are
extinguished,
for
the
scene
to
be
changed
With
a
hollow
rumble
of
wings,
with
a
movement
of
darkness
on
darkness,
And
we
know
that
the
hills
and
the
trees,
the
distant
panorama
And
the
bold
imposing
facade
are
all
being
rolled
away—
Or
as,
when
an
underground
train,
in
the
tube,
stops
too
long
between
stations
And
the
conversation
rises
and
slowly
fades
into
silence
And
you
see
behind
every
face
the
mental
emptiness
deepen
Leaving
only
the
growing
terror
of
nothing
to
think
about;
Or
when,
under
ether,
the
mind
is
conscious
but
conscious
of
nothing—
I
said
to
my
soul,
be
still,
and
wait
without
hope
For
hope
would
be
hope
for
the
wrong
thing;
wait
without
love,
For
love
would
be
love
of
the
wrong
thing;
there
is
yet
faith
But
the
faith
and
the
love
and
the
hope
are
all
in
the
waiting.
Wait
without
thought,
for
you
are
not
ready
for
thought:
So
the
darkness
shall
be
the
light,
and
the
stillness
the
dancing.
Whisper
of
running
streams,
and
winter
lightning.
The
wild
thyme
unseen
and
the
wild
strawberry,
The
laughter
in
the
garden,
echoed
ecstasy
Not
lost,
but
requiring,
pointing
to
the
agony
Of
death
and
birth.
You
say
I
am
repeating
Something
I
have
said
before.
I
shall
say
it
again.
Shall
I
say
it
again?
In
order
to
arrive
there,
To
arrive
where
you
are,
to
get
from
where
you
are
not,
You
must
go
by
a
way
wherein
there
is
no
ecstasy.
In
order
to
arrive
at
what
you
do
not
know
You
must
go
by
a
way
which
is
the
way
of
ignorance.
In
order
to
possess
what
you
do
not
possess
You
must
go
by
the
way
of
dispossession.
In
order
to
arrive
at
what
you
are
not
You
must
go
through
the
way
in
which
you
are
not.
And
what
you
do
not
know
is
the
only
thing
you
know
And
what
you
own
is
what
you
do
not
own
And
where
you
are
is
where
you
are
not.
IV
The
wounded
surgeon
plies
the
steel
That
questions
the
distempered
part;
Beneath
the
bleeding
hands
we
feel
The
sharp
compassion
of
the
healer's
art
Resolving
the
enigma
of
the
fever
chart.
Our
only
health
is
the
disease
If
we
obey
the
dying
nurse
Whose
constant
care
is
not
to
please
But
to
remind
of
our,
and
Adam's
curse,
And
that,
to
be
restored,
our
sickness
must
grow
worse.
The
whole
earth
is
our
hospital
Endowed
by
the
ruined
millionaire,
Wherein,
if
we
do
well,
we
shall
Die
of
the
absolute
paternal
care
That
will
not
leave
us,
but
prevents
us
everywhere.
The
chill
ascends
from
feet
to
knees,
The
fever
sings
in
mental
wires.
If
to
be
warmed,
then
I
must
freeze
And
quake
in
frigid
purgatorial
fires
Of
which
the
flame
is
roses,
and
the
smoke
is
briars.
The
dripping
blood
our
only
drink,
The
bloody
flesh
our
only
food:
In
spite
of
which
we
like
to
think
That
we
are
sound,
substantial
flesh
and
blood—
Again,
in
spite
of
that,
we
call
this
Friday
good.
V
So
here
I
am,
in
the
middle
way,
having
had
twenty
years—
Twenty
years
largely
wasted,
the
years
of
l'entre
deux
guerres
Trying
to
use
words,
and
every
attempt
Is
a
wholly
new
start,
and
a
different
kind
of
failure
Because
one
has
only
learnt
to
get
the
better
of
words
For
the
thing
one
no
longer
has
to
say,
or
the
way
in
which
One
is
no
longer
disposed
to
say
it.
And
so
each
venture
Is
a
new
beginning,
a
raid
on
the
inarticulate
With
shabby
equipment
always
deteriorating
In
the
general
mess
of
imprecision
of
feeling,
Undisciplined
squads
of
emotion.
And
what
there
is
to
conquer
By
strength
and
submission,
has
already
been
discovered
Once
or
twice,
or
several
times,
by
men
whom
one
cannot
hope
To
emulate—but
there
is
no
competition—
There
is
only
the
fight
to
recover
what
has
been
lost
And
found
and
lost
again
and
again:
and
now,
under
conditions
That
seem
unpropitious.
But
perhaps
neither
gain
nor
loss.
For
us,
there
is
only
the
trying.
The
rest
is
not
our
business.
Home
is
where
one
starts
from.
As
we
grow
older
The
world
becomes
stranger,
the
pattern
more
complicated
Of
dead
and
living.
Not
the
intense
moment
Isolated,
with
no
before
and
after,
But
a
lifetime
burning
in
every
moment
And
not
the
lifetime
of
one
man
only
But
of
old
stones
that
cannot
be
deciphered.
There
is
a
time
for
the
evening
under
starlight,
A
time
for
the
evening
under
lamplight
(The
evening
with
the
photograph
album).
Love
is
most
nearly
itself
When
here
and
now
cease
to
matter.
Old
men
ought
to
be
explorers
Here
or
there
does
not
matter
We
must
be
still
and
still
moving
Into
another
intensity
For
a
further
union,
a
deeper
communion
Through
the
dark
cold
and
the
empty
desolation,
The
wave
cry,
the
wind
cry,
the
vast
waters
Of
the
petrel
and
the
porpoise.
In
my
end
is
my
beginning.
Thomas Stearns Eliot
T.S. Eliot (born September 26, 1888, St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.—died January 4, 1965, London, England) American-English poet, playwright, literary critic, and editor, a leader of the Modernist movement in poetry in such works as The Waste Land (1922) and Four Quartets (1943). Eliot exercised a strong influence on Anglo-American culture from the 1920s until late in the century. His experiments in diction, style, and versification revitalized English poetry, and in a series of critical essays he shattered old orthodoxies and erected new ones. The publication of Four Quartets led to his recognition as the greatest living English poet and man of letters, and in 1948 he was awarded both the Order of Merit and the Nobel Prize for Literature. Eliot advocates a traditionalism in religion, society, and literature that seems at odds with his pioneer activity as a poet. But although the Eliot of Notes towards the Definition of Culture (1948) is an older man than the poet of The Waste Land, it should not be forgotten that for Eliot tradition is a living organism comprising past and present in constant mutual interaction.