I love these extracts from T.S.Elliot, brought to my attention by Ernesto Spinelli in his lecture last Saturday
BURNT NORTON
(No. 1 of 'Four Quartets')
T.S. Eliot
Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future, And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been Point to one end, which is always present.
BURNT NORTON
(No. 1 of 'Four Quartets')
T.S. Eliot
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
LITTLE GIDDING
(No. 4 of 'Four Quartets')
T.S. Eliot
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.
