The Little Gidding from the Four Quartets
With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this Calling
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always–
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flames are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.
T. S. Elliot (1888-1965), Poet and Nobel Prize in Literature recipient
“This is a quote that’s been with me for most of my life. I feel like I would spoil it by adding anything to it. I think the best commentary on that is just to read it again. It’s just all there. It’s the last section of the last of the Four Quartets and it’s where everything comes back and completes itself.”
Arjuna Ardagh
author of Radical Brilliance
