The Complete Poems and Plays, 1909-1950 by T. S. Eliot

Author:T. S. Eliot
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2023-07-19T00:00:00+00:00

First Priest: O father, father, gone from us, lost to us,

How shall we find you, from what far place

Do you look down on us? You now in Heaven,

Who shall now guide us, protect us, direct us?

After what journey through what further dread

Shall we recover your presence? when inherit

Your strength? The Church lies bereft,

Alone, desecrated, desolated, and the heathen shall build on the ruins,

Their world without God. I see it. I see it.

THIRD PRIEST: No. For the Church is stronger for this action,

Triumphant in adversity. It is fortified

By persecution: supreme, so long as men will die for it.

Go, weak sad men, lost erring souls, homeless in earth or heaven.

Go where the sunset reddens the last grey rock

Of Brittany, or the Gates of Hercules.

Go venture shipwreck on the sullen coasts

Where blackamoors make captive Christian men;

Go to the northern seas confined with ice

Where the dead breath makes numb the hand, makes dull the brain;

Find an oasis in the desert sun,

Go seek alliance with the heathen Saracen,

To share his filthy rites, and try to snatch

Forgetfulness in his libidinous courts,

Oblivion in the fountain by the date-tree;

Or sit and bite your nails in Aquitaine.

In the small circle of pain within the skull

You still shall tramp and tread one endless round

Of thought, to justify your action to yourselves,

Weaving a fiction which unravels as you weave,

Pacing forever in the hell of make-believe

Which never is belief: this is your fate on earth

And we must think no further of you. O my lord

The glory of whose new state is hidden from us,

Pray for us of your charity; now in the sight of God

Conjoined with all the saints and martyrs gone before you,

Remember us. Let our thanks ascend

To God, who has given us another Saint in Canterbury.

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