Four Quartets 4: Little Gidding Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: A BCDEFGEHEEIJKELBIBME NOLPQRIESTEIUQVFWRKX NEBYARZEBIIBIA2B2 A C2C2D2D2E2E2EE F2F2G2G2H2H2F2F2 I2I2J2J2K2K2EE IL2IM2IN2O2P2I2Q2IR2 S2IET2U2V2H2J2 W2EX2Y2Z2IKEH2RI A3BRBB3BH2C3D3E3F3EI G3EQH3L2I3J3K3QL3EI3 BM3A2W2QN3O3P3Q3E GBB A IEA2E3R3BEIBEBE3S3T3 U3B Q3XH2R2H2QQQU3H2V3BW 3Q3X3IVBP2Y3Z3LU3A4E 3EQ3D2H2F2XH2B3I B3 EEEEEEE B3W2B3W2B3EE B3 B4IB2C4U2QBB3IEIBD4E 4IU3F4U3B3B3BG4H2X I BID2KX3EIEH2B3EQB3B2 B3IXH2D2EB

IA
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Midwinter spring is its own seasonB
Sempiternal though sodden towards sundownC
Suspended in time between pole and tropicD
When the short day is brightest with frost and fireE
The brief sun flames the ice on pond and ditchesF
In windless cold that is the heart's heatG
Reflecting in a watery mirrorE
A glare that is blindness in the early afternoonH
And glow more intense than blaze of branch or brazierE
Stirs the dumb spirit no wind but pentecostal fireE
In the dark time of the year Between melting and freezingI
The soul's sap quivers There is no earth smellJ
Or smell of living thing This is the spring timeK
But not in time's covenant Now the hedgerowE
Is blanched for an hour with transitory blossomL
Of snow a bloom more suddenB
Than that of summer neither budding nor fadingI
Not in the scheme of generationB
Where is the summer the unimaginableM
Zero summerE
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If you came this wayN
Taking the route you would be likely to takeO
From the place you would be likely to come fromL
If you came this way in may time you would find the hedgesP
White again in May with voluptuary sweetnessQ
It would be the same at the end of the journeyR
If you came at night like a broken kingI
If you came by day not knowing what you came forE
It would be the same when you leave the rough roadS
And turn behind the pig sty to the dull facadeT
And the tombstone And what you thought you came forE
Is only a shell a husk of meaningI
From which the purpose breaks only when it is fulfilledU
If at all Either you had no purposeQ
Or the purpose is beyond the end you figuredV
And is altered in fulfilment There are other placesF
Which also are the world's end some at the sea jawsW
Or over a dark lake in a desert or a cityR
But this is the nearest in place and timeK
Now and in EnglandX
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If you came this wayN
Taking any route starting from anywhereE
At any time or at any seasonB
It would always be the same you would have to put offY
Sense and notion You are not here to verifyA
Instruct yourself or inform curiosityR
Or carry report You are here to kneelZ
Where prayer has been valid And prayer is moreE
Than an order of words the conscious occupationB
Of the praying mind or the sound of the voice prayingI
And what the dead had no speech for when livingI
They can tell you being dead the communicationB
Of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the livingI
Here the intersection of the timeless momentA2
Is England and nowhere Never and alwaysB2
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IIA
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Ash on and old man's sleeveC2
Is all the ash the burnt roses leaveC2
Dust in the air suspendedD2
Marks the place where a story endedD2
Dust inbreathed was a houseE2
The walls the wainscot and the mouseE2
The death of hope and despairE
This is the death of airE
-
There are flood and drouthF2
Over the eyes and in the mouthF2
Dead water and dead sandG2
Contending for the upper handG2
The parched eviscerate soilH2
Gapes at the vanity of toilH2
Laughs without mirthF2
This is the death of earthF2
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Water and fire succeedI2
The town the pasture and the weedI2
Water and fire derideJ2
The sacrifice that we deniedJ2
Water and fire shall rotK2
The marred foundations we forgotK2
Of sanctuary and choirE
This is the death of water and fireE
-
In the uncertain hour before the morningI
Near the ending of interminable nightL2
At the recurrent end of the unendingI
After the dark dove with the flickering tongueM2
Had passed below the horizon of his homingI
While the dead leaves still rattled on like tinN2
Over the asphalt where no other sound wasO2
Between three districts whence the smoke aroseP2
I met one walking loitering and hurriedI2
As if blown towards me like the metal leavesQ2
Before the urban dawn wind unresistingI
And as I fixed upon the down turned faceR2
That pointed scrutiny with which we challengeS2
The first met stranger in the waning duskI
I caught the sudden look of some dead masterE
Whom I had known forgotten half recalledT2
Both one and many in the brown baked featuresU2
The eyes of a familiar compound ghostV2
Both intimate and unidentifiableH2
So I assumed a double part and criedJ2
And heard another's voice cry 'What are you here '-
Although we were not I was still the sameW2
Knowing myself yet being someone otherE
And he a face still forming yet the words sufficedX2
To compel the recognition they precededY2
And so compliant to the common windZ2
Too strange to each other for misunderstandingI
In concord at this intersection timeK
Of meeting nowhere no before and afterE
We trod the pavement in a dead patrolH2
I said 'The wonder that I feel is easyR
Yet ease is cause of wonder Therefore speakI
I may not comprehend may not remember '-
And he 'I am not eager to rehearseA3
My thoughts and theory which you have forgottenB
These things have served their purpose let them beR
So with your own and pray they be forgivenB
By others as I pray you to forgiveB3
Both bad and good Last season's fruit is eatenB
And the fullfed beast shall kick the empty pailH2
For last year's words belong to last year's languageC3
And next year's words await another voiceD3
But as the passage now presents no hindranceE3
To the spirit unappeased and peregrineF3
Between two worlds become much like each otherE
So I find words I never thought to speakI
In streets I never thought I should revisitG3
When I left my body on a distant shoreE
Since our concern was speech and speech impelled usQ
To purify the dialect of the tribeH3
And urge the mind to aftersight and foresightL2
Let me disclose the gifts reserved for ageI3
To set a crown upon your lifetime's effortJ3
First the cold friction of expiring senseK3
Without enchantment offering no promiseQ
But bitter tastelessness of shadow fruitL3
As body and soul begin to fall asunderE
Second the conscious impotence of rageI3
At human folly and the lacerationB
Of laughter at what ceases to amuseM3
And last the rending pain of re enactmentA2
Of all that you have done and been the shameW2
Of motives late revealed and the awarenessQ
Of things ill done and done to others' harmN3
Which once you took for exercise of virtueO3
Then fools' approval stings and honour stainsP3
From wrong to wrong the exasperated spiritQ3
Proceeds unless restored by that refining fireE
Where you must move in measure like a dancer '-
The day was breaking In the disfigured streetG
He left me with a kind of valedictionB
And faded on the blowing of the hornB
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IIIA
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There are three conditions which often look alikeI
Yet differ completely flourish in the same hedgerowE
Attachment to self and to things and to persons detachmentA2
From self and from things and from persons and growing between them indifferenceE3
Which resembles the others as death resembles lifeR3
Being between two lives unflowering betweenB
The live and the dead nettle This is the use of memoryE
For liberation not less of love but expandingI
Of love beyond desire and so liberationB
From the future as well as the past Thus love of a countryE
Begins as attachment to our own field of actionB
And comes to find that action of little importanceE3
Though never indifferent History may be servitudeS3
History may be freedom See now they vanishT3
The faces and places with the self which as it could loved themU3
To become renewed transfigured in another patternB
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Sin is Behovely butQ3
All shall be well andX
All manner of thing shall be wellH2
If I think again of this placeR2
And of people not wholly commendableH2
Of no immediate kin or kindnessQ
But of some peculiar geniusQ
All touched by a common geniusQ
United in the strife which divided themU3
If I think of a king at nightfallH2
Of three men and more on the scaffoldV3
And a few who died forgottenB
In other places here and abroadW3
And of one who died blind and quietQ3
Why should we celebrateX3
These dead men more than the dyingI
It is not to ring the bell backwardV
Nor is it an incantationB
To summon the spectre of a RoseP2
We cannot revive old factionsY3
We cannot restore old policiesZ3
Or follow an antique drumL
These men and those who opposed themU3
And those whom they opposedA4
Accept the constitution of silenceE3
And are folded in a single partyE
Whatever we inherit from the fortunateQ3
We have taken from the defeatedD2
What they had to leave us a symbolH2
A symbol perfected in deathF2
And all shall be well andX
All manner of thing shall be wellH2
By the purification of the motiveB3
In the ground of our beseechingI
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IVB3
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The dove descending breaks the airE
With flame of incandescent terrorE
Of which the tongues declareE
The one discharge from sin and errorE
The only hope or else despairE
Lies in the choice of pyre of pyreE
To be redeemed from fire by fireE
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Who then devised the torment LoveB3
Love is the unfamiliar NameW2
Behind the hands that woveB3
The intolerable shirt of flameW2
Which human power cannot removeB3
We only live only suspireE
Consumed by either fire or fireE
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VB3
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What we call the beginning is often the endB4
And to make and end is to make a beginningI
The end is where we start from And every phraseB2
And sentence that is right where every word is at homeC4
Taking its place to support the othersU2
The word neither diffident nor ostentatiousQ
An easy commerce of the old and the newB
The common word exact without vulgarityB3
The formal word precise but not pedanticI
The complete consort dancing togetherE
Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginningI
Every poem an epitaph And any actionB
Is a step to the block to the fire down the sea's throatD4
Or to an illegible stone and that is where we startE4
We die with the dyingI
See they depart and we go with themU3
We are born with the deadF4
See they return and bring us with themU3
The moment of the rose and the moment of the yew treeB3
Are of equal duration A people without historyB3
Is not redeemed from time for history is a patternB
Of timeless moments So while the light failsG4
On a winter's afternoon in a secluded chapelH2
History is now and EnglandX
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With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this CallingI
-
We shall not cease from explorationB
And the end of all our exploringI
Will be to arrive where we startedD2
And know the place for the first timeK
Through the unknown unremembered gateX3
When the last of earth left to discoverE
Is that which was the beginningI
At the source of the longest riverE
The voice of the hidden waterfallH2
And the children in the apple treeB3
Not known because not looked forE
But heard half heard in the stillnessQ
Between two waves of the seaB3
Quick now here now alwaysB2
A condition of complete simplicityB3
Costing not less than everythingI
And all shall be well andX
All manner of thing shall be wellH2
When the tongues of flame are in foldedD2
Into the crowned knot of fireE
And the fire and the rose are oneB

T. S. Eliot



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Evan Lewis: Common error in the last stanza line 5. Should read '...through the unknown remembered gate...' This is a significant error because so much of Little Gidding is about returning to our places of origin, having attained the wisdom and humility to finally know the things we remember from our past with a deep understanding rather than a cursory acquaintance.
Find Eliot reading the poem on Youtube for confirmation - he reads 'remembered'.

Warmly
Evan
 

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