Anonymous

Lovely indeed :) Thank you for posting it.

 Anonymous

Do you even know what it is about?
It is not lovely, is is tormenting.
Imagine a soul in purgatory...how long will that soul be there? How long will the torment continue? A minute and hour a day a year forever? That is what the poem is about.

 woody weaver

> It is not lovely, is is tormenting.

It is, of course, both.

It was written by a man very late in his career, a powerful career with many accolades and impact. It was written by a man who in his early 20's wrote a love song that stunned Europe. It was written by a man that first rejected religion, then was surprisingly dominated by it -- so much so that the chief defect of the Quartets was that it was so religious. It was written by a man who was shortly to die, and knew of his incipient demise.

It is an adaptation of a 12th century formal song, the "farewell ballata", written by a brilliant Italian poet, also at the end of his life, who spent his whole life trying to understand love. His work on understanding spirit was a major element in the development of medicine in the Islamic Golden Age.

There is much sadness here; a looking backward, and knowing that things do end. That once mighty powers are laid low; that wings that once gave flight now only can beat the air. Shakespeare was more compact in Sonnet 15: "every thing that grows // Holds in perfection but a little moment."

But Eliot has more peace. He rejoices in the ways of things. He rejoices in having to come to terms with that ending. And he prays for comfort, with an oddly Buddhist "teach us to care, and not to care, and to sit still."

It is quite a remarkable work.