30 November 2012


'the inner freedom from the practical desire,
the release from action and suffering, release from the inner
and the outer compulsion, yet surrounded
by a grace of sense, a white light still and moving,
erhebung without motion, concentration
without elimination, both a new world
and the old made explicit, understood
in the completion of its partial ecstasy,
the resolution of its partial horror.
yet the enchantment of past and future
woven in the weakness of the changing body,
protects mankind from heaven and damnation
which flesh cannot endure.
                            time past and time future
allow but a little consciousness.
to be conscious is not to be in time
but only in time can the moment in the rose-garden,
the moment in the arbour where the rain beat,
the moment in the draughty church at smokefall
be remembered; involved with past and future.
only through time time is conquered.'


/ from section ii of 'burnt norton' from ts eliots 'four quartets'