T S Eliot's "Ash Wednesday"
Not good at memorizing poems, never have been. Not even my own. Still, the fragments that come back must be the bits that really stuck (even if they come back piecemeal and/or distorted). Was walking today and "Teach us to care and not to care" came flying back. Why? Well, that's another question to ponder.
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Must be Eliot's month (Sept not April).
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Because I do not hope to know
Because I know that time is always time
And pray to God to have mercy upon us
Because these wings are no longer wings to fly
Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our
death
At the first turning of the third stair
Lord, I am not worthy
but
speak the word only.
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Must be Eliot's month (Sept not April).
*
Ash
Wednesday
I
Because I do not hope to turn again
Because I do not hope
Because I do not hope to turn
Desiring this man's gift and that man's scope
I no longer strive to strive towards such things
(Why should the agèd eagle stretch its wings?)
Why should I mourn
The vanished power of the usual reign?
The infirm glory of the positive hour
Because I do not think
Because I know I shall not know
The one veritable transitory power
Because I cannot drink
There, where trees flower, and springs flow, for
there is
nothing again
And place is always and only place
And what is actual is actual only for one time
And only for one place
I rejoice that things are as they are and
I renounce the blessèd face
And renounce the voice
Because I cannot hope to turn again
Consequently I rejoice, having to construct
something
Upon which to rejoice
And pray that I may forget
These matters that with myself I too much
discuss
Too much explain
Because I do not hope to turn again
Let these words answer
For what is done, not to be done again
May the judgement not be too heavy upon us
But merely vans to beat the air
The air which is now thoroughly small and dry
Smaller and dryer than the will
Teach us to care and not to care Teach us to sit
still.
Pray for us now and at the hour of our death.
II
Lady, three white leopards sat under a
juniper-tree
In the cool of the day, having fed to satiety
On my legs my heart my liver and that which had
been
contained
In the hollow round of my skull. And God said
Shall these bones live? shall these
Bones live? And that which had been contained
In the bones (which were already dry) said
chirping:
Because of the goodness of this Lady
And because of her loveliness, and because
She honours the Virgin in meditation,
We shine with brightness. And I who am here
dissembled
Proffer my deeds to oblivion, and my love
To the posterity of the desert and the fruit of
the gourd.
It is this which recovers
My guts the strings of my eyes and the
indigestible portions
Which the leopards reject. The Lady is withdrawn
In a white gown, to contemplation, in a white
gown.
Let the whiteness of bones atone to
forgetfulness.
There is no life in them. As I am forgotten
And would be forgotten, so I would forget
Thus devoted, concentrated in purpose. And God
said
Prophesy to the wind, to the wind only for only
The wind will listen. And the bones sang
chirping
With the burden of the grasshopper, saying
Lady of silences
Calm and distressed
Torn and most whole
Rose of memory
Rose of forgetfulness
Exhausted and life-giving
Worried reposeful
The single Rose
Is now the Garden
Where all loves end
Terminate torment
Of love unsatisfied
The greater torment
Of love satisfied
End of the endless
Journey to no end
Conclusion of all that
Is inconclusible
Speech without word and
Word of no speech
Grace to the Mother
For the Garden
Where all love ends.
Under a juniper-tree the bones sang, scattered
and shining
We are glad to be scattered, we did little good
to each
other,
Under a tree in the cool of day, with the
blessing of sand,
Forgetting themselves and each other, united
In the quiet of the desert. This is the land
which ye
Shall divide by lot. And neither division nor
unity
Matters. This is the land. We have our
inheritance.
III
At the first turning of the second stair
I turned and saw below
The same shape twisted on the banister
Under the vapour in the fetid air
Struggling with the devil of the stairs who
wears
The deceitful face of hope and of despair.
At the second turning of the second stair
I left them twisting, turning below;
There were no more faces and the stair was dark,
Damp, jaggèd, like an old man's mouth
drivelling, beyond
repair,
Or the toothed gullet of an agèd shark.
Was a slotted window bellied like the figs's
fruit
And beyond the hawthorn blossom and a pasture
scene
The broadbacked figure drest in blue and green
Enchanted the maytime with an antique flute.
Blown hair is sweet, brown hair over the mouth
blown,
Lilac and brown hair;
Distraction, music of the flute, stops and steps
of the mind
over the third stair,
Fading, fading; strength beyond hope and despair
Climbing the third stair.
Lord, I am not worthy
IV
Who walked between the violet and the violet
Who walked between
The various ranks of varied green
Going in white and blue, in Mary's colour,
Talking of trivial things
In ignorance and knowledge of eternal dolour
Who moved among the others as they walked,
Who then made strong the fountains and made fresh
the springs
Made cool the dry rock and made firm the sand
In blue of larkspur, blue of Mary's colour,
Sovegna vos
Here are the years that walk between, bearing
Away the fiddles and the flutes, restoring
One who moves in the time between sleep and waking,
wearing
White light folded, sheathing about her, folded.
The new years walk, restoring
Through a bright cloud of tears, the years,
restoring
With a new verse the ancient rhyme. Redeem
The time. Redeem
The unread vision in the higher dream
While jewelled unicorns draw by the gilded
hearse.
The silent sister veiled in white and blue
Between the yews, behind the garden god,
Whose flute is breathless, bent her head and
signed but spoke
no word
But the fountain sprang up and the bird sang
down
Redeem the time, redeem the dream
The token of the word unheard, unspoken
Till the wind shake a thousand whispers from the
yew
And after this our exile
V
If the lost word is lost, if the spent word is
spent
If the unheard, unspoken
Word is unspoken, unheard;
Still is the unspoken word, the Word unheard,
The Word without a word, the Word within
The world and for the world;
And the light shone in darkness and
Against the Word the unstilled world still
whirled
About the centre of the silent Word.
O my people, what have I done unto thee.
Where shall the word be found, where will the
word
Resound? Not here, there is not enough silence
Not on the sea or on the islands, not
On the mainland, in the desert or the rain land,
For those who walk in darkness
Both in the day time and in the night time
The right time and the right place are not here
No place of grace for those who avoid the face
No time to rejoice for those who walk among
noise and deny
the voice
Will the veiled sister pray for
Those who walk in darkness, who chose thee and
oppose thee,
Those who are torn on the horn between season
and season,
time and time, between
Hour and hour, word and word, power and power,
those who wait
In darkness? Will the veiled sister pray
For children at the gate
Who will not go away and cannot pray:
Pray for those who chose and oppose
O my people, what have I done unto thee.
Will the veiled sister between the slender
Yew trees pray for those who offend her
And are terrified and cannot surrender
And affirm before the world and deny between the
rocks
In the last desert before the last blue rocks
The desert in the garden the garden in the
desert
Of drouth, spitting from the mouth the withered
apple-seed.
O my people.
VI
Although I do not hope to turn again
Although I do not hope
Although I do not hope to turn
Wavering between the profit and the loss
In this brief transit where the dreams cross
The dreamcrossed twilight between birth and
dying
(Bless me father) though I do not wish to wish
these things
From the wide window towards the granite shore
The white sails still fly seaward, seaward
flying
Unbroken wings
And the lost heart stiffens and rejoices
In the lost lilac and the lost sea voices
And the weak spirit quickens to rebel
For the bent golden-rod and the lost sea smell
Quickens to recover
The cry of quail and the whirling plover
And the blind eye creates
The empty forms between the ivory gates
And smell renews the salt savour of the sandy
earth
This is the time of tension between dying and
birth
The place of solitude where three dreams cross
Between blue rocks
But when the voices shaken from the yew-tree
drift away
Let the other yew be shaken and reply.
Blessèd sister, holy mother, spirit of the
fountain, spirit
of the garden,
Suffer us not to mock ourselves with falsehood
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still
Even among these rocks,
Our peace in His will
And even among these rocks
Sister, mother
And spirit of the river, spirit of the sea,
Suffer me not to be separated
And let my
cry come unto Thee.
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