Four Quartets 4: Little Gidding
I
Midwinter
spring
is
its
own
season
Sempiternal
though
sodden
towards
sundown,
Suspended
in
time,
between
pole
and
tropic.
When
the
short
day
is
brightest,
with
frost
and
fire,
The
brief
sun
flames
the
ice,
on
pond
and
ditches,
In
windless
cold
that
is
the
heart's
heat,
Reflecting
in
a
watery
mirror
A
glare
that
is
blindness
in
the
early
afternoon.
And
glow
more
intense
than
blaze
of
branch,
or
brazier,
Stirs
the
dumb
spirit:
no
wind,
but
pentecostal
fire
In
the
dark
time
of
the
year.
Between
melting
and
freezing
The
soul's
sap
quivers.
There
is
no
earth
smell
Or
smell
of
living
thing.
This
is
the
spring
time
But
not
in
time's
covenant.
Now
the
hedgerow
Is
blanched
for
an
hour
with
transitory
blossom
Of
snow,
a
bloom
more
sudden
Than
that
of
summer,
neither
budding
nor
fading,
Not
in
the
scheme
of
generation.
Where
is
the
summer,
the
unimaginable
Zero
summer?
If
you
came
this
way,
Taking
the
route
you
would
be
likely
to
take
From
the
place
you
would
be
likely
to
come
from,
If
you
came
this
way
in
may
time,
you
would
find
the
hedges
White
again,
in
May,
with
voluptuary
sweetness.
It
would
be
the
same
at
the
end
of
the
journey,
If
you
came
at
night
like
a
broken
king,
If
you
came
by
day
not
knowing
what
you
came
for,
It
would
be
the
same,
when
you
leave
the
rough
road
And
turn
behind
the
pig-sty
to
the
dull
facade
And
the
tombstone.
And
what
you
thought
you
came
for
Is
only
a
shell,
a
husk
of
meaning
From
which
the
purpose
breaks
only
when
it
is
fulfilled
If
at
all.
Either
you
had
no
purpose
Or
the
purpose
is
beyond
the
end
you
figured
And
is
altered
in
fulfilment.
There
are
other
places
Which
also
are
the
world's
end,
some
at
the
sea
jaws,
Or
over
a
dark
lake,
in
a
desert
or
a
city—
But
this
is
the
nearest,
in
place
and
time,
Now
and
in
England.
If
you
came
this
way,
Taking
any
route,
starting
from
anywhere,
At
any
time
or
at
any
season,
It
would
always
be
the
same:
you
would
have
to
put
off
Sense
and
notion.
You
are
not
here
to
verify,
Instruct
yourself,
or
inform
curiosity
Or
carry
report.
You
are
here
to
kneel
Where
prayer
has
been
valid.
And
prayer
is
more
Than
an
order
of
words,
the
conscious
occupation
Of
the
praying
mind,
or
the
sound
of
the
voice
praying.
And
what
the
dead
had
no
speech
for,
when
living,
They
can
tell
you,
being
dead:
the
communication
Of
the
dead
is
tongued
with
fire
beyond
the
language
of
the
living.
Here,
the
intersection
of
the
timeless
moment
Is
England
and
nowhere.
Never
and
always.
II
Ash
on
and
old
man's
sleeve
Is
all
the
ash
the
burnt
roses
leave.
Dust
in
the
air
suspended
Marks
the
place
where
a
story
ended.
Dust
inbreathed
was
a
house—
The
walls,
the
wainscot
and
the
mouse,
The
death
of
hope
and
despair,
This
is
the
death
of
air.
There
are
flood
and
drouth
Over
the
eyes
and
in
the
mouth,
Dead
water
and
dead
sand
Contending
for
the
upper
hand.
The
parched
eviscerate
soil
Gapes
at
the
vanity
of
toil,
Laughs
without
mirth.
This
is
the
death
of
earth.
Water
and
fire
succeed
The
town,
the
pasture
and
the
weed.
Water
and
fire
deride
The
sacrifice
that
we
denied.
Water
and
fire
shall
rot
The
marred
foundations
we
forgot,
Of
sanctuary
and
choir.
This
is
the
death
of
water
and
fire.
In
the
uncertain
hour
before
the
morning
Near
the
ending
of
interminable
night
At
the
recurrent
end
of
the
unending
After
the
dark
dove
with
the
flickering
tongue
Had
passed
below
the
horizon
of
his
homing
While
the
dead
leaves
still
rattled
on
like
tin
Over
the
asphalt
where
no
other
sound
was
Between
three
districts
whence
the
smoke
arose
I
met
one
walking,
loitering
and
hurried
As
if
blown
towards
me
like
the
metal
leaves
Before
the
urban
dawn
wind
unresisting.
And
as
I
fixed
upon
the
down-turned
face
That
pointed
scrutiny
with
which
we
challenge
The
first-met
stranger
in
the
waning
dusk
I
caught
the
sudden
look
of
some
dead
master
Whom
I
had
known,
forgotten,
half
recalled
Both
one
and
many;
in
the
brown
baked
features
The
eyes
of
a
familiar
compound
ghost
Both
intimate
and
unidentifiable.
So
I
assumed
a
double
part,
and
cried
And
heard
another's
voice
cry:
'What!
are
you
here?'
Although
we
were
not.
I
was
still
the
same,
Knowing
myself
yet
being
someone
other—
And
he
a
face
still
forming;
yet
the
words
sufficed
To
compel
the
recognition
they
preceded.
And
so,
compliant
to
the
common
wind,
Too
strange
to
each
other
for
misunderstanding,
In
concord
at
this
intersection
time
Of
meeting
nowhere,
no
before
and
after,
We
trod
the
pavement
in
a
dead
patrol.
I
said:
'The
wonder
that
I
feel
is
easy,
Yet
ease
is
cause
of
wonder.
Therefore
speak:
I
may
not
comprehend,
may
not
remember.'
And
he:
'I
am
not
eager
to
rehearse
My
thoughts
and
theory
which
you
have
forgotten.
These
things
have
served
their
purpose:
let
them
be.
So
with
your
own,
and
pray
they
be
forgiven
By
others,
as
I
pray
you
to
forgive
Both
bad
and
good.
Last
season's
fruit
is
eaten
And
the
fullfed
beast
shall
kick
the
empty
pail.
For
last
year's
words
belong
to
last
year's
language
And
next
year's
words
await
another
voice.
But,
as
the
passage
now
presents
no
hindrance
To
the
spirit
unappeased
and
peregrine
Between
two
worlds
become
much
like
each
other,
So
I
find
words
I
never
thought
to
speak
In
streets
I
never
thought
I
should
revisit
When
I
left
my
body
on
a
distant
shore.
Since
our
concern
was
speech,
and
speech
impelled
us
To
purify
the
dialect
of
the
tribe
And
urge
the
mind
to
aftersight
and
foresight,
Let
me
disclose
the
gifts
reserved
for
age
To
set
a
crown
upon
your
lifetime's
effort.
First,
the
cold
friction
of
expiring
sense
Without
enchantment,
offering
no
promise
But
bitter
tastelessness
of
shadow
fruit
As
body
and
soul
begin
to
fall
asunder.
Second,
the
conscious
impotence
of
rage
At
human
folly,
and
the
laceration
Of
laughter
at
what
ceases
to
amuse.
And
last,
the
rending
pain
of
re-enactment
Of
all
that
you
have
done,
and
been;
the
shame
Of
motives
late
revealed,
and
the
awareness
Of
things
ill
done
and
done
to
others'
harm
Which
once
you
took
for
exercise
of
virtue.
Then
fools'
approval
stings,
and
honour
stains.
From
wrong
to
wrong
the
exasperated
spirit
Proceeds,
unless
restored
by
that
refining
fire
Where
you
must
move
in
measure,
like
a
dancer.'
The
day
was
breaking.
In
the
disfigured
street
He
left
me,
with
a
kind
of
valediction,
And
faded
on
the
blowing
of
the
horn.
III
There
are
three
conditions
which
often
look
alike
Yet
differ
completely,
flourish
in
the
same
hedgerow:
Attachment
to
self
and
to
things
and
to
persons,
detachment
From
self
and
from
things
and
from
persons;
and,
growing
between
them,
indifference
Which
resembles
the
others
as
death
resembles
life,
Being
between
two
lives—unflowering,
between
The
live
and
the
dead
nettle.
This
is
the
use
of
memory:
For
liberation—not
less
of
love
but
expanding
Of
love
beyond
desire,
and
so
liberation
From
the
future
as
well
as
the
past.
Thus,
love
of
a
country
Begins
as
attachment
to
our
own
field
of
action
And
comes
to
find
that
action
of
little
importance
Though
never
indifferent.
History
may
be
servitude,
History
may
be
freedom.
See,
now
they
vanish,
The
faces
and
places,
with
the
self
which,
as
it
could,
loved
them,
To
become
renewed,
transfigured,
in
another
pattern.
Sin
is
Behovely,
but
All
shall
be
well,
and
All
manner
of
thing
shall
be
well.
If
I
think,
again,
of
this
place,
And
of
people,
not
wholly
commendable,
Of
no
immediate
kin
or
kindness,
But
of
some
peculiar
genius,
All
touched
by
a
common
genius,
United
in
the
strife
which
divided
them;
If
I
think
of
a
king
at
nightfall,
Of
three
men,
and
more,
on
the
scaffold
And
a
few
who
died
forgotten
In
other
places,
here
and
abroad,
And
of
one
who
died
blind
and
quiet
Why
should
we
celebrate
These
dead
men
more
than
the
dying?
It
is
not
to
ring
the
bell
backward
Nor
is
it
an
incantation
To
summon
the
spectre
of
a
Rose.
We
cannot
revive
old
factions
We
cannot
restore
old
policies
Or
follow
an
antique
drum.
These
men,
and
those
who
opposed
them
And
those
whom
they
opposed
Accept
the
constitution
of
silence
And
are
folded
in
a
single
party.
Whatever
we
inherit
from
the
fortunate
We
have
taken
from
the
defeated
What
they
had
to
leave
us—a
symbol:
A
symbol
perfected
in
death.
And
all
shall
be
well
and
All
manner
of
thing
shall
be
well
By
the
purification
of
the
motive
In
the
ground
of
our
beseeching.
IV
The
dove
descending
breaks
the
air
With
flame
of
incandescent
terror
Of
which
the
tongues
declare
The
one
discharge
from
sin
and
error.
The
only
hope,
or
else
despair
Lies
in
the
choice
of
pyre
of
pyre—
To
be
redeemed
from
fire
by
fire.
Who
then
devised
the
torment?
Love.
Love
is
the
unfamiliar
Name
Behind
the
hands
that
wove
The
intolerable
shirt
of
flame
Which
human
power
cannot
remove.
We
only
live,
only
suspire
Consumed
by
either
fire
or
fire.
V
What
we
call
the
beginning
is
often
the
end
And
to
make
and
end
is
to
make
a
beginning.
The
end
is
where
we
start
from.
And
every
phrase
And
sentence
that
is
right
(where
every
word
is
at
home,
Taking
its
place
to
support
the
others,
The
word
neither
diffident
nor
ostentatious,
An
easy
commerce
of
the
old
and
the
new,
The
common
word
exact
without
vulgarity,
The
formal
word
precise
but
not
pedantic,
The
complete
consort
dancing
together)
Every
phrase
and
every
sentence
is
an
end
and
a
beginning,
Every
poem
an
epitaph.
And
any
action
Is
a
step
to
the
block,
to
the
fire,
down
the
sea's
throat
Or
to
an
illegible
stone:
and
that
is
where
we
start.
We
die
with
the
dying:
See,
they
depart,
and
we
go
with
them.
We
are
born
with
the
dead:
See,
they
return,
and
bring
us
with
them.
The
moment
of
the
rose
and
the
moment
of
the
yew-tree
Are
of
equal
duration.
A
people
without
history
Is
not
redeemed
from
time,
for
history
is
a
pattern
Of
timeless
moments.
So,
while
the
light
fails
On
a
winter's
afternoon,
in
a
secluded
chapel
History
is
now
and
England.
With
the
drawing
of
this
Love
and
the
voice
of
this
Calling
We
shall
not
cease
from
exploration
And
the
end
of
all
our
exploring
Will
be
to
arrive
where
we
started
And
know
the
place
for
the
first
time.
Through
the
unknown,
unremembered
gate
When
the
last
of
earth
left
to
discover
Is
that
which
was
the
beginning;
At
the
source
of
the
longest
river
The
voice
of
the
hidden
waterfall
And
the
children
in
the
apple-tree
Not
known,
because
not
looked
for
But
heard,
half-heard,
in
the
stillness
Between
two
waves
of
the
sea.
Quick
now,
here,
now,
always—
A
condition
of
complete
simplicity
(Costing
not
less
than
everything)
And
all
shall
be
well
and
All
manner
of
thing
shall
be
well
When
the
tongues
of
flame
are
in-folded
Into
the
crowned
knot
of
fire
And
the
fire
and
the
rose
are
one.
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.