The Dry
Salvages
(excerpt)
Fare forward, travellers!
Not escaping from the past
Into indifferent lives, or into any future;
You are not the same people who left that station
Or who will arrive at
any terminus,
While the narrowing rails slide together behind you;
And
on the deck of the drumming liner
Watching the furrow that widens behind
you,
You shall not think 'the past is finished'
Or 'the future is before
us'.
At nightfall, in the rigging and the aerial,
Is a voice descanting
(though not to the ear,
The murmuring shell of time, and not in any
language)
Fare forward, you who think
that you are voyaging;
You are not those who saw the harbour
Receding,
or those who will disembark.
Here between the hither and the farther shore
While time is withdrawn, consider the future
And the past with an equal
mind.
At the moment which is not of action or inaction
You can receive
this: "on whatever sphere of being
The mind of man may be intent
At the
time of death" - that is the one action
(And the time of death is every
moment)
Which will fructify in the lives of others:
And do not think of
the fruit of action.
Fare Forward.
O voyagers, O seamen,
You
who came to port, and you whose bodies
Will suffer the trial and judgement of
the sea,
Or whatever event, this is your real destination."
So Krishna, as
when he admonished Arjuna
On the field of battle.
Not fare well,
But
fare forward, voyagers.
~ T.S. Eliot ~
(Collected
Poems)
(left button to play, right button
to save)