More Eliot

[David Simpson]

The name of T.S. Eliot was very appropriately invoked this week, with
specific  citations from the "falling towers" section (ll. 367-377) of
*The Waste Land.* Equally pertinent are the "Little Gidding" sections of
the *Four Quartets* that describe the aftermath (with echoes of Dante,
and with mingled images of Pentecost and Armageddon) of German V1 and V2
attacks. (Eliot patrolled the streets and rooftops of London as a
volunteer spotter during the blitz.)

Ash on an old man's sleeve
Is all the ash the burnt roses leave.
Dust in the air suspended
Marks the place where a story ended.
Dust inbreathed was a house--
(II, 1-5).

In the uncertain hour before the morning
Near the ending of interminable night
At the recurrent end of the unending
After the dark dove with the flickering tongue
Had passed below the horizon of his homing
While the dead leaves still rattled on like tin
Over the asphalt where no other sound was
Between three districts whence the smoke arose
I met one walking, loitering and hurried
As if blown toward me like the metal leaves
Before the urban dawn wind unresisting.
(II, 25-35).

The dove descending breaks the air
With flame of incandescent terror...
(IV, 1-2).

The conclusion of the poem, with its combined imagery of destruction and
renewal, of earthly Apocalypse transformed into the Heaven-fire of
Eternity, is justly famous:

And all shall be well
And all manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.

--
"My genius is in my nostrils. I smell out lies." -- Nietzsche.
--
Home Page: http://www.depaul.edu/~dsimpson