8.24.2010

The goods on Quietude

The endless cycle of idea and action,
Endless invention, endless experiment,
Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness;
Knowledge of speech, but not of silence;
Knowledge of words, and ignorance of The Word.
All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance,
All our ignorance brings us nearer to death,
But nearness to death no nearer to God.
Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?


- T.S. Eliot, "Choruses from the Rock"

2 comments:

Simple Theories said...

I have to say, I always got tired of Eliot's paradoxes.

Henry Gould said...

There is that jaded world-weariness, against which Hart Crane greatly set himself... but maybe I'm just getting old - in the jangly online poetry circus the message appeals to me... where is wholeness? Synthesis? Memory? History? Vision? Everything shatters into clever & manic digital nibbles...