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Wednesday, January 01, 2014

Make a beginning




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.

-- From "Little Gidding" in The Four Quartets by TS Eliot


 

2 comments:

  1. One of my favorite poems. Love the meditation on time, life, death, meaning in the Four Quartets. Read Little Gidding out loud sitting in damp grass as the sun set at my dad's grave on the centenary of his birth.

    "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"

    ReplyDelete
  2. I watched "Philomena" last night as I was tucked in bed in my old room at my parents' house, having visited my dad in a nursing facility and had a quiet dinner with my mother, and I listened to Steve Coogan quote from this very poem: "And the end of all our exploring / Will be to arrive where we started / And know the place for the first time." And then I woke up to this in my inbox. Thank you.

    ReplyDelete

I love your comments and I'm sorry if I don't always reply, but please do feel free to comment anyway. Love, MissW