Four Quartets 1: Burnt Norton
I
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.
Footfalls
echo
in
the
memory
Down
the
passage
which
we
did
not
take
Towards
the
door
we
never
opened
Into
the
rose-garden.
My
words
echo
Thus,
in
your
mind.
But
to
what
purpose
Disturbing
the
dust
on
a
bowl
of
rose-leaves
I
do
not
know.
Other
echoes
Inhabit
the
garden.
Shall
we
follow?
Quick,
said
the
bird,
find
them,
find
them,
Round
the
corner.
Through
the
first
gate,
Into
our
first
world,
shall
we
follow
The
deception
of
the
thrush?
Into
our
first
world.
There
they
were,
dignified,
invisible,
Moving
without
pressure,
over
the
dead
leaves,
In
the
autumn
heat,
through
the
vibrant
air,
And
the
bird
called,
in
response
to
The
unheard
music
hidden
in
the
shrubbery,
And
the
unseen
eyebeam
crossed,
for
the
roses
Had
the
look
of
flowers
that
are
looked
at.
There
they
were
as
our
guests,
accepted
and
accepting.
So
we
moved,
and
they,
in
a
formal
pattern,
Along
the
empty
alley,
into
the
box
circle,
To
look
down
into
the
drained
pool.
Dry
the
pool,
dry
concrete,
brown
edged,
And
the
pool
was
filled
with
water
out
of
sunlight,
And
the
lotos
rose,
quietly,
quietly,
The
surface
glittered
out
of
heart
of
light,
And
they
were
behind
us,
reflected
in
the
pool.
Then
a
cloud
passed,
and
the
pool
was
empty.
Go,
said
the
bird,
for
the
leaves
were
full
of
children,
Hidden
excitedly,
containing
laughter.
Go,
go,
go,
said
the
bird:
human
kind
Cannot
bear
very
much
reality.
Time
past
and
time
future
What
might
have
been
and
what
has
been
Point
to
one
end,
which
is
always
present.
II
Garlic
and
sapphires
in
the
mud
Clot
the
bedded
axle-tree.
The
trilling
wire
in
the
blood
Sings
below
inveterate
scars
Appeasing
long
forgotten
wars.
The
dance
along
the
artery
The
circulation
of
the
lymph
Are
figured
in
the
drift
of
stars
Ascend
to
summer
in
the
tree
We
move
above
the
moving
tree
In
light
upon
the
figured
leaf
And
hear
upon
the
sodden
floor
Below,
the
boarhound
and
the
boar
Pursue
their
pattern
as
before
But
reconciled
among
the
stars.
At
the
still
point
of
the
turning
world.
Neither
flesh
nor
fleshless;
Neither
from
nor
towards;
at
the
still
point,
there
the
dance
is,
But
neither
arrest
nor
movement.
And
do
not
call
it
fixity,
Where
past
and
future
are
gathered.
Neither
movement
from
nor
towards,
Neither
ascent
nor
decline.
Except
for
the
point,
the
still
point,
There
would
be
no
dance,
and
there
is
only
the
dance.
I
can
only
say,
there
we
have
been:
but
I
cannot
say
where.
And
I
cannot
say,
how
long,
for
that
is
to
place
it
in
time.
The
inner
freedom
from
the
practical
desire,
The
release
from
action
and
suffering,
release
from
the
inner
And
the
outer
compulsion,
yet
surrounded
By
a
grace
of
sense,
a
white
light
still
and
moving,
Erhebung
without
motion,
concentration
Without
elimination,
both
a
new
world
And
the
old
made
explicit,
understood
In
the
completion
of
its
partial
ecstasy,
The
resolution
of
its
partial
horror.
Yet
the
enchainment
of
past
and
future
Woven
in
the
weakness
of
the
changing
body,
Protects
mankind
from
heaven
and
damnation
Which
flesh
cannot
endure.
Time
past
and
time
future
Allow
but
a
little
consciousness.
To
be
conscious
is
not
to
be
in
time
But
only
in
time
can
the
moment
in
the
rose-garden,
The
moment
in
the
arbour
where
the
rain
beat,
The
moment
in
the
draughty
church
at
smokefall
Be
remembered;
involved
with
past
and
future.
Only
through
time
time
is
conquered.
III
Here
is
a
place
of
disaffection
Time
before
and
time
after
In
a
dim
light:
neither
daylight
Investing
form
with
lucid
stillness
Turning
shadow
into
transient
beauty
With
slow
rotation
suggesting
permanence
Nor
darkness
to
purify
the
soul
Emptying
the
sensual
with
deprivation
Cleansing
affection
from
the
temporal.
Neither
plenitude
nor
vacancy.
Only
a
flicker
Over
the
strained
time-ridden
faces
Distracted
from
distraction
by
distraction
Filled
with
fancies
and
empty
of
meaning
Tumid
apathy
with
no
concentration
Men
and
bits
of
paper,
whirled
by
the
cold
wind
That
blows
before
and
after
time,
Wind
in
and
out
of
unwholesome
lungs
Time
before
and
time
after.
Eructation
of
unhealthy
souls
Into
the
faded
air,
the
torpid
Driven
on
the
wind
that
sweeps
the
gloomy
hills
of
London,
Hampstead
and
Clerkenwell,
Campden
and
Putney,
Highgate,
Primrose
and
Ludgate.
Not
here
Not
here
the
darkness,
in
this
twittering
world.
Descend
lower,
descend
only
Into
the
world
of
perpetual
solitude,
World
not
world,
but
that
which
is
not
world,
Internal
darkness,
deprivation
And
destitution
of
all
property,
Desiccation
of
the
world
of
sense,
Evacuation
of
the
world
of
fancy,
Inoperancy
of
the
world
of
spirit;
This
is
the
one
way,
and
the
other
Is
the
same,
not
in
movement
But
abstention
from
movement;
while
the
world
moves
In
appetency,
on
its
metalled
ways
Of
time
past
and
time
future.
IV
Time
and
the
bell
have
buried
the
day,
The
black
cloud
carries
the
sun
away.
Will
the
sunflower
turn
to
us,
will
the
clematis
Stray
down,
bend
to
us;
tendril
and
spray
Clutch
and
cling?
Chill
Fingers
of
yew
be
curled
Down
on
us?
After
the
kingfisher's
wing
Has
answered
light
to
light,
and
is
silent,
the
light
is
still
At
the
still
point
of
the
turning
world.
V
Words
move,
music
moves
Only
in
time;
but
that
which
is
only
living
Can
only
die.
Words,
after
speech,
reach
Into
the
silence.
Only
by
the
form,
the
pattern,
Can
words
or
music
reach
The
stillness,
as
a
Chinese
jar
still
Moves
perpetually
in
its
stillness.
Not
the
stillness
of
the
violin,
while
the
note
lasts,
Not
that
only,
but
the
co-existence,
Or
say
that
the
end
precedes
the
beginning,
And
the
end
and
the
beginning
were
always
there
Before
the
beginning
and
after
the
end.
And
all
is
always
now.
Words
strain,
Crack
and
sometimes
break,
under
the
burden,
Under
the
tension,
slip,
slide,
perish,
Decay
with
imprecision,
will
not
stay
in
place,
Will
not
stay
still.
Shrieking
voices
Scolding,
mocking,
or
merely
chattering,
Always
assail
them.
The
Word
in
the
desert
Is
most
attacked
by
voices
of
temptation,
The
crying
shadow
in
the
funeral
dance,
The
loud
lament
of
the
disconsolate
chimera.
The
detail
of
the
pattern
is
movement,
As
in
the
figure
of
the
ten
stairs.
Desire
itself
is
movement
Not
in
itself
desirable;
Love
is
itself
unmoving,
Only
the
cause
and
end
of
movement,
Timeless,
and
undesiring
Except
in
the
aspect
of
time
Caught
in
the
form
of
limitation
Between
un-being
and
being.
Sudden
in
a
shaft
of
sunlight
Even
while
the
dust
moves
There
rises
the
hidden
laughter
Of
children
in
the
foliage
Quick
now,
here,
now,
always—
Ridiculous
the
waste
sad
time
Stretching
before
and
after.
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.