T.S. Eliot ~ East Coker ~ from the Third Movement & Sleepers Awaken

Marc Chagall’s – Passover Angel of Death, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN.

T.S. ELIOT ~ THE FOUR QUARTETS


​EAST COKER ~ THIRD MOVEMENT

&
​
​SLEEPERS AWAKEN​

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EAST COKER ~ THIRD MOVEMENT

I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon you
Which shall be the darkness of God. As, in a theatre,
The lights are extinguished, for the scene to be changed
With a hollow rumble of wings, with a movement of darkness on darkness,
And we know that the hills and the trees, the distant panorama
And the bold imposing facade are all being rolled away–
Or as, when an underground train, in the tube, stops too long between stations
And the conversation rises and slowly fades into silence
And you see behind every face the mental emptiness deepen
Leaving only the growing terror of nothing to think about;
Or when, under ether, the mind is conscious but conscious of nothing–
I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.

Burnt Norton

At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.



Musical Background ~ 
The Essential Yo-Yo Ma ~ Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme (Sleepers Awake).  Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, Ton Koopman & Yo-Yo Ma
Year:  2004