I started out an Eliot scorner, but he and I made our peace many years ago. I didn’t understand his poems; I still don’t, but now I can enjoy without understanding completely. Here are a couple of excerpts from Eliot”s play, Murder in the Cathedral.

You think me reckless, desperate and mad.
You argue by results, as this world does,
To settle if an act be good or bad.
You defer to the fact. For every life and every act
Consequence of good and evil can be shown.
And as in time results of many deeds are blended
So good and evil in the end become confounded.
It is not in time that my death shall be known;
It is out of time that my decision is taken
If you call that decision
To which my whole being gives entire consent.
I give my life
To the Law of God above the Law of Man.
Those who do not the same
How should they know what I do?

You shall forget these things, toiling in the household,
You shall remember them, droning by the fire,
When age and forgetfulness sweeten memory
Only like a dream that has often been told
And often been changed in the telling. They will seem unreal.
Human kind cannot bear very much reality.

More Eliot:

Eliot’s Hysteria.

Actor Michael Gough reads The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.

Macavity, the Mystery Cat.