Thou Hast Nor Youth Nor Age

I cannot bend this chord,
I cannot frame the sunlight
into a more succinct sound;
and this is what I found,
that certain things of the earth
must be taken as they come
from this ground we all walk.

We all rose up, you know,
all things pure, all forthcoming,
all must rise from the ground,
and this is what I found, or
meant, that all of us of earth
will catapult through air,
sizzling through the firmament.

And we can pound
and pound the songs
forthcoming, beat with fists
and bone and flesh,
pound and pound
the planetŐs simple song,
but never will we bend
the chord that is our fate,
those of us who, once flying,
must now learn to burrow
into the ground.
Pound and pound, then
run this song from town
to sound of water, water,
pound and pound and pound,
throughout the simple town,
round and round,
and this is what, at last,
is right there to be found . . .
that our very souls --
the very end,
the very beginning --
are round and round
and round.

Ward Kelley

According to T. S. Eliot's instructions, his tomb was engraved with the 
phrase, "in the beginning is my end, in the end is my beginning." The 
title of the above poem was taken from the dedication to his poem 
"Gerontion."


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