T.S. Eliot
1888-1965
   
       
      A Song for Simeon
      Lord, the Roman hyacinths are blooming in bowls and
      The winter sun creeps by the snow hills;
      The stubborn season has made stand.
      My life is light, waiting for the death wind,
      Like a feather on the back of my hand.
      Dust in sunlight and memory in corners
      Wait for the wind that chills towards the dead land.
         Grant us thy peace.
      I have walked many years in this city,
      Kept faith and fast, provided for the poor,
      Have given and taken honour and ease.
      There never went any rejected from my door.
      Who shall remember my house, where shall live my children's children
      When the time of sorrow is come?
      They will take to the goat's path, and the fox's home,
      Fleeing from the foreign faces and the foreign swords.
         Before the time of cords and scourges and lamentation
      Grant us thy peace.
      Before the stations of the mountain of desolation,
      Before the certain hour of maternal sorrow,
      Now at this birth season of decease,
      Let the Infant, the still unspeaking and unspoken Word,
      Grant Israel's consolation
        To one who has eighty years and no tomorrow.
         According to thy word.
      They shall praise Thee and suffer in every generation
      With glory and derision,
      Light upon light, mounting the saints' stair.
      Not for me the martyrdom, the ecstasy of thought and prayer,
      Not for me the ultimate vision.
      Grant me thy peace.
      (And a sword shall pierce thy heart,
      Thine also).
      I am tired with my own life and the lives of those after me,
      I am dying in my own death and the deaths of those after me.
      Let thy servant depart,
      Having seen thy salvation.

      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 towards such things
      (Why should the aged eagle stretch its wings?)
      Why should I mourn
      The vanished power of the usual reign?
        Because I do not hope to know again
      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
      
       Because I know that time is always time
      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 blessed 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 to God to have mercy upon us
      And I 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 judgment not be too heavy upon us
        Because these wings are no longer wings to fly
      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 sinners now and at the hour of our death
      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 silence
      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 the 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, jagged, like an old man's mouth drivelling, beyond repair,
      Or the toothed gullet of an aged shark.
        At the first turning of the third stair
      Was a slotted window bellied like the fig'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
      Lord, I am not worthy
               but speak the word only.

                      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 in knowledge of eternal dolour
      Who moved among the others and 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, sheathed 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 spend 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 drkness 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 the 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 siter pray
      For children at the gate
      Who will not go away and cannot pray:
      Pray for those who chose an oppose
               O my people, what have I done unto thee.
        Will the veiled sister between the slender
      Yew trees pray for those who offended her
      And are terrified and cannot surrender
      And affirm before the world and deny between the rocks
      In the last desert between 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
      I 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.
        Blessed 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.