Four Quartets 3: The Dry Salvages
I
I
do
not
know
much
about
gods;
but
I
think
that
the
river
Is
a
strong
brown
god—sullen,
untamed
and
intractable,
Patient
to
some
degree,
at
first
recognised
as
a
frontier;
Useful,
untrustworthy,
as
a
conveyor
of
commerce;
Then
only
a
problem
confronting
the
builder
of
bridges.
The
problem
once
solved,
the
brown
god
is
almost
forgotten
By
the
dwellers
in
cities—ever,
however,
implacable.
Keeping
his
seasons
and
rages,
destroyer,
reminder
Of
what
men
choose
to
forget.
Unhonoured,
unpropitiated
By
worshippers
of
the
machine,
but
waiting,
watching
and
waiting.
His
rhythm
was
present
in
the
nursery
bedroom,
In
the
rank
ailanthus
of
the
April
dooryard,
In
the
smell
of
grapes
on
the
autumn
table,
And
the
evening
circle
in
the
winter
gaslight.
The
river
is
within
us,
the
sea
is
all
about
us;
The
sea
is
the
land's
edge
also,
the
granite
Into
which
it
reaches,
the
beaches
where
it
tosses
Its
hints
of
earlier
and
other
creation:
The
starfish,
the
horseshoe
crab,
the
whale's
backbone;
The
pools
where
it
offers
to
our
curiosity
The
more
delicate
algae
and
the
sea
anemone.
It
tosses
up
our
losses,
the
torn
seine,
The
shattered
lobsterpot,
the
broken
oar
And
the
gear
of
foreign
dead
men.
The
sea
has
many
voices,
Many
gods
and
many
voices.
The
salt
is
on
the
briar
rose,
The
fog
is
in
the
fir
trees.
The
sea
howl
And
the
sea
yelp,
are
different
voices
Often
together
heard:
the
whine
in
the
rigging,
The
menace
and
caress
of
wave
that
breaks
on
water,
The
distant
rote
in
the
granite
teeth,
And
the
wailing
warning
from
the
approaching
headland
Are
all
sea
voices,
and
the
heaving
groaner
Rounded
homewards,
and
the
seagull:
And
under
the
oppression
of
the
silent
fog
The
tolling
bell
Measures
time
not
our
time,
rung
by
the
unhurried
Ground
swell,
a
time
Older
than
the
time
of
chronometers,
older
Than
time
counted
by
anxious
worried
women
Lying
awake,
calculating
the
future,
Trying
to
unweave,
unwind,
unravel
And
piece
together
the
past
and
the
future,
Between
midnight
and
dawn,
when
the
past
is
all
deception,
The
future
futureless,
before
the
morning
watch
When
time
stops
and
time
is
never
ending;
And
the
ground
swell,
that
is
and
was
from
the
beginning,
Clangs
The
bell.
II
Where
is
there
an
end
of
it,
the
soundless
wailing,
The
silent
withering
of
autumn
flowers
Dropping
their
petals
and
remaining
motionless;
Where
is
there
and
end
to
the
drifting
wreckage,
The
prayer
of
the
bone
on
the
beach,
the
unprayable
Prayer
at
the
calamitous
annunciation?
There
is
no
end,
but
addition:
the
trailing
Consequence
of
further
days
and
hours,
While
emotion
takes
to
itself
the
emotionless
Years
of
living
among
the
breakage
Of
what
was
believed
in
as
the
most
reliable—
And
therefore
the
fittest
for
renunciation.
There
is
the
final
addition,
the
failing
Pride
or
resentment
at
failing
powers,
The
unattached
devotion
which
might
pass
for
devotionless,
In
a
drifting
boat
with
a
slow
leakage,
The
silent
listening
to
the
undeniable
Clamour
of
the
bell
of
the
last
annunciation.
Where
is
the
end
of
them,
the
fishermen
sailing
Into
the
wind's
tail,
where
the
fog
cowers?
We
cannot
think
of
a
time
that
is
oceanless
Or
of
an
ocean
not
littered
with
wastage
Or
of
a
future
that
is
not
liable
Like
the
past,
to
have
no
destination.
We
have
to
think
of
them
as
forever
bailing,
Setting
and
hauling,
while
the
North
East
lowers
Over
shallow
banks
unchanging
and
erosionless
Or
drawing
their
money,
drying
sails
at
dockage;
Not
as
making
a
trip
that
will
be
unpayable
For
a
haul
that
will
not
bear
examination.
There
is
no
end
of
it,
the
voiceless
wailing,
No
end
to
the
withering
of
withered
flowers,
To
the
movement
of
pain
that
is
painless
and
motionless,
To
the
drift
of
the
sea
and
the
drifting
wreckage,
The
bone's
prayer
to
Death
its
God.
Only
the
hardly,
barely
prayable
Prayer
of
the
one
Annunciation.
It
seems,
as
one
becomes
older,
That
the
past
has
another
pattern,
and
ceases
to
be
a
mere
sequence—
Or
even
development:
the
latter
a
partial
fallacy
Encouraged
by
superficial
notions
of
evolution,
Which
becomes,
in
the
popular
mind,
a
means
of
disowning
the
past.
The
moments
of
happiness—not
the
sense
of
well-being,
Fruition,
fulfilment,
security
or
affection,
Or
even
a
very
good
dinner,
but
the
sudden
illumination—
We
had
the
experience
but
missed
the
meaning,
And
approach
to
the
meaning
restores
the
experience
In
a
different
form,
beyond
any
meaning
We
can
assign
to
happiness.
I
have
said
before
That
the
past
experience
revived
in
the
meaning
Is
not
the
experience
of
one
life
only
But
of
many
generations—not
forgetting
Something
that
is
probably
quite
ineffable:
The
backward
look
behind
the
assurance
Of
recorded
history,
the
backward
half-look
Over
the
shoulder,
towards
the
primitive
terror.
Now,
we
come
to
discover
that
the
moments
of
agony
(Whether,
or
not,
due
to
misunderstanding,
Having
hoped
for
the
wrong
things
or
dreaded
the
wrong
things,
Is
not
in
question)
are
likewise
permanent
With
such
permanence
as
time
has.
We
appreciate
this
better
In
the
agony
of
others,
nearly
experienced,
Involving
ourselves,
than
in
our
own.
For
our
own
past
is
covered
by
the
currents
of
action,
But
the
torment
of
others
remains
an
experience
Unqualified,
unworn
by
subsequent
attrition.
People
change,
and
smile:
but
the
agony
abides.
Time
the
destroyer
is
time
the
preserver,
Like
the
river
with
its
cargo
of
dead
negroes,
cows
and
chicken
coops,
The
bitter
apple,
and
the
bite
in
the
apple.
And
the
ragged
rock
in
the
restless
waters,
Waves
wash
over
it,
fogs
conceal
it;
On
a
halcyon
day
it
is
merely
a
monument,
In
navigable
weather
it
is
always
a
seamark
To
lay
a
course
by:
but
in
the
sombre
season
Or
the
sudden
fury,
is
what
it
always
was.
III
I
sometimes
wonder
if
that
is
what
Krishna
meant—
Among
other
things—or
one
way
of
putting
the
same
thing:
That
the
future
is
a
faded
song,
a
Royal
Rose
or
a
lavender
spray
Of
wistful
regret
for
those
who
are
not
yet
here
to
regret,
Pressed
between
yellow
leaves
of
a
book
that
has
never
been
opened.
And
the
way
up
is
the
way
down,
the
way
forward
is
the
way
back.
You
cannot
face
it
steadily,
but
this
thing
is
sure,
That
time
is
no
healer:
the
patient
is
no
longer
here.
When
the
train
starts,
and
the
passengers
are
settled
To
fruit,
periodicals
and
business
letters
(And
those
who
saw
them
off
have
left
the
platform)
Their
faces
relax
from
grief
into
relief,
To
the
sleepy
rhythm
of
a
hundred
hours.
Fare
forward,
travellers!
not
escaping
from
the
past
Into
different
lives,
or
into
any
future;
You
are
not
the
same
people
who
left
that
station
Or
who
will
arrive
at
any
terminus,
While
the
narrowing
rails
slide
together
behind
you;
And
on
the
deck
of
the
drumming
liner
Watching
the
furrow
that
widens
behind
you,
You
shall
not
think
'the
past
is
finished'
Or
'the
future
is
before
us'.
At
nightfall,
in
the
rigging
and
the
aerial,
Is
a
voice
descanting
(though
not
to
the
ear,
The
murmuring
shell
of
time,
and
not
in
any
language)
'Fare
forward,
you
who
think
that
you
are
voyaging;
You
are
not
those
who
saw
the
harbour
Receding,
or
those
who
will
disembark.
Here
between
the
hither
and
the
farther
shore
While
time
is
withdrawn,
consider
the
future
And
the
past
with
an
equal
mind.
At
the
moment
which
is
not
of
action
or
inaction
You
can
receive
this:
"on
whatever
sphere
of
being
The
mind
of
a
man
may
be
intent
At
the
time
of
death"—that
is
the
one
action
(And
the
time
of
death
is
every
moment)
Which
shall
fructify
in
the
lives
of
others:
And
do
not
think
of
the
fruit
of
action.
Fare
forward.
O
voyagers,
O
seamen,
You
who
came
to
port,
and
you
whose
bodies
Will
suffer
the
trial
and
judgement
of
the
sea,
Or
whatever
event,
this
is
your
real
destination.'
So
Krishna,
as
when
he
admonished
Arjuna
On
the
field
of
battle.
Not
fare
well,
But
fare
forward,
voyagers.
IV
Lady,
whose
shrine
stands
on
the
promontory,
Pray
for
all
those
who
are
in
ships,
those
Whose
business
has
to
do
with
fish,
and
Those
concerned
with
every
lawful
traffic
And
those
who
conduct
them.
Repeat
a
prayer
also
on
behalf
of
Women
who
have
seen
their
sons
or
husbands
Setting
forth,
and
not
returning:
Figlia
del
tuo
figlio,
Queen
of
Heaven.
Also
pray
for
those
who
were
in
ships,
and
Ended
their
voyage
on
the
sand,
in
the
sea's
lips
Or
in
the
dark
throat
which
will
not
reject
them
Or
wherever
cannot
reach
them
the
sound
of
the
sea
bell's
Perpetual
angelus.
V
To
communicate
with
Mars,
converse
with
spirits,
To
report
the
behaviour
of
the
sea
monster,
Describe
the
horoscope,
haruspicate
or
scry,
Observe
disease
in
signatures,
evoke
Biography
from
the
wrinkles
of
the
palm
And
tragedy
from
fingers;
release
omens
By
sortilege,
or
tea
leaves,
riddle
the
inevitable
With
playing
cards,
fiddle
with
pentagrams
Or
barbituric
acids,
or
dissect
The
recurrent
image
into
pre-conscious
terrors—
To
explore
the
womb,
or
tomb,
or
dreams;
all
these
are
usual
Pastimes
and
drugs,
and
features
of
the
press:
And
always
will
be,
some
of
them
especially
When
there
is
distress
of
nations
and
perplexity
Whether
on
the
shores
of
Asia,
or
in
the
Edgware
Road.
Men's
curiosity
searches
past
and
future
And
clings
to
that
dimension.
But
to
apprehend
The
point
of
intersection
of
the
timeless
With
time,
is
an
occupation
for
the
saint—
No
occupation
either,
but
something
given
And
taken,
in
a
lifetime's
death
in
love,
Ardour
and
selflessness
and
self-surrender.
For
most
of
us,
there
is
only
the
unattended
Moment,
the
moment
in
and
out
of
time,
The
distraction
fit,
lost
in
a
shaft
of
sunlight,
The
wild
thyme
unseen,
or
the
winter
lightning
Or
the
waterfall,
or
music
heard
so
deeply
That
it
is
not
heard
at
all,
but
you
are
the
music
While
the
music
lasts.
These
are
only
hints
and
guesses,
Hints
followed
by
guesses;
and
the
rest
Is
prayer,
observance,
discipline,
thought
and
action.
The
hint
half
guessed,
the
gift
half
understood,
is
Incarnation.
Here
the
impossible
union
Of
spheres
of
existence
is
actual,
Here
the
past
and
future
Are
conquered,
and
reconciled,
Where
action
were
otherwise
movement
Of
that
which
is
only
moved
And
has
in
it
no
source
of
movement—
Driven
by
dæmonic,
chthonic
Powers.
And
right
action
is
freedom
From
past
and
future
also.
For
most
of
us,
this
is
the
aim
Never
here
to
be
realised;
Who
are
only
undefeated
Because
we
have
gone
on
trying;
We,
content
at
the
last
If
our
temporal
reversion
nourish
(Not
too
far
from
the
yew-tree)
The
life
of
significant
soil.
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.