Sárospataki Füzetek 12. (2008)

2008 / 2. szám - TANULMÁNYOK - Frank Sawyer: A reading of T. S. Eliot's Ashwednesday

Frank Sawyer

There is a refrain used in full or in part three times in this section: ‘O my people, what have I done unto thee.’ This comes from the prophet Micah 6:3 and is part of the Good Friday liturgy, as words Christ could have said from the cross. The theological basis which rings through this poem is that of God seeking those who are lost.

Part six

In the final section Eliot reminds us of the first lines of the poem, with a slight difference: ‘although I do not hope to turn again’. What began as ‘because’ and then became ‘cannot’, is now ‘although’. There is, he says, a ‘wavering’, but the ‘although’ means that the turn has been made, even if the turning is only a beginning:

Wavering between the profit and the loss

In this brief transit where the dreams cross

The dreamcrossed twilight between birth and dying

(Bless me father) though I do not wish to wish these things

From the wide window towards the granite shore

The white sails still fly seaward, seaward flying

Unbroken wings

The question of profit and loss refers to eternal values that need to be chosen during the brief transit of life. Shall we be care-burdened by worldly pleasures, or care-free like the sails in the wind? Shall the old eagle mentioned in part one, fly again?2? Here is a picture of nostalgia for the past, but also the knowledge that a choice must be made between our dreams. What was earlier a ‘slotted window’ is now a ‘wide window’, because the poet has settled his attitude about how to view the past.

The rest of the poem reads as follows:

And the lost heart stiffens and rejoices

In the lost lilac and the lost sea voices

And the weak spirit quickens to rebel

For the bent golden-rod and the lost sea smell

Quickens to recover

The cry of quail and the whirling plover

And the blind eye creates

The empty forms between the ivory gates

And smell renews the salt savour of the sandy earth 29

29 The symbol of wings has many meanings for Eliot, for he knew about the medieval symbol of an eagle falling into the water and being renewed as in baptism. The eagle also appears in Dante, and Eliot refers in an essay to Homer and the other great prechristian poets as eagles that fly above the rest. In Christianity the basis is found in Psalm 103:5, and in Isaiah 40:31, ‘Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wdngs like eagles....’

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