“time past and time futurewhat might have been and what has beenpoint to one end, which is always present.”

“Time present and time pastAre both perhaps present in time future,And time future contained in time past.If all time is eternally presentAll time is unredeemable.What might have been is an abstractionRemaining a perpetual possibilityOnly in a world of speculation.What might have been and what has beenPoint to one end, which is always present.Footfalls echo in the memoryDown the passage which we did not takeTowards the door we never openedInto the rose-garden. My words echoThus, in your mind.But to what purposeDisturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leavesI do not know.Other echoesInhabit the garden. Shall we follow?”<...>Go, said the bird, for the leaves were full of children,Hidden excitedly, containing laughter.Go, go, go, said the bird: human kindCannot bear very much reality.Time past and time futureWhat might have been and what has beenPoint to one end, which is always present.”

“Time present and time past / are both perhaps present in time future.”

“Time present and time pastAre both perhaps present in time futureAnd time future contained in time past.”

“Because I know that time is time and place is always and only place and what is actual is actual only for one time and only for one place, I rejoice that things are as they are and I renounce the blessed faces and renounce the voice because I cannot hope to turn again.”

“But time past is a time forgotten. We expect the rise of a new constellation.”

“So here I am, in the middle way, having had twenty years-Twenty years largely wasted, the years of l'entre deux guerres-Trying to use words, and every attemptIs a wholy new start, and a different kind of failureBecause one has only learnt to get the better of wordsFor the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in whichOne is no longer disposed to say it. And so each ventureIs a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate,With shabby equipment always deterioratingIn the general mess of imprecision of feeling,Undisciplined squads of emotion. And what there is to conquerBy strength and submission, has already been discoveredOnce or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot hopeTo emulate - but there is no competition -There is only the fight to recover what has been lostAnd found and lost again and again: and now, under conditionsThat seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss.For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.”