Excerpt from T.S. Elliott

Note: This is not my work.  Usually, I only post up my own personal writing or reflections, but occassionally, I post up something else that inspires me or that I really admire.  This is one of those times.  This is a small excerpt from T.S. Eliott's poem, 'Little Gidding'.  I've tried to keep the punctuation the same as well.  What poet doesn't respect T.S. Elliott, right?  I am no exception.  So, this is his.



'Little Gidding' - Stanza 3 & 4

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 s hell, a husk of meaning

From which the purpose breaks only when it is fulfilled

It at all.  Either you had no purpose

Or the purpose is beyond the end you figured

And is altered in fulfillment.  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.