879  excerpt of T.S. Eliot

Date: Sun, 1 Dec 2002 19:49:13 -0800
From: Jonathan Thornton <jnt@NOYAU.COM>
Subject: excerpt of T.S. Eliot

I don't think he was thinking of dancing, but his thoughts on music speak
to me of the best dance. Does this poetry speak to anyone else?

Jonathan Thornton


from THE DRY SALVAGES
(No. 3 of 'Four Quartets')

T.S. Eliot


Men's curiosity searches past and future
And clings to that dimension. But to apprehend
The point of intersection of the timeless
With time, is an occupation for the saint;
No occupation either, but something given
And taken, in a lifetime's death in love,
Ardour and selflessness and self-surrender.
For most of us, there is only the unattended
Moment, the moment in and out of time,
The distraction fit, lost in a shaft of sunlight,
The wild thyme unseen, or the winter lightning
Or the waterfall, or music heard so deeply
That it is not heard at all, but you are the music
While the music lasts. These are only hints and guesses,
Hints followed by guesses; and the rest
Is prayer, observance, discipline, thought and action.
The hint half guessed, the gift half understood, is Incarnation.