{ "id": "t-s-eliot/ash-wednesday", "title": "Ash-Wednesday", "ordinal": null, "subtitle": null, "poet": "T. S. Eliot", "poet_slug": "t-s-eliot", "language": "en", "book": "Poetry", "book_slug": null, "book_kind": "compilation", "sequence": null, "container": null, "epigraph": null, "first_published": { "year": 1930, "venue": "Ash-Wednesday (London, Faber & Faber, and New York, The Fountain Press, 1930)", "note": "The first printing of the complete six-part poem, catalogued as Gallup A15a; G. P. Putnam's Sons issued the New York trade edition the same year. Whether individual sections had appeared earlier in periodicals has not been established here.", "uncertain": true, "sources": [ "https://openlibrary.org/books/OL16677453M", "https://archive.org/details/ashwednesday0000unse_g4n8" ] }, "source": { "kind": "standard-ebooks", "repo": "standardebooks/t-s-eliot_poetry", "file": "poetry.xhtml", "upstream": [ "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1567", "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/009592742", "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1321", "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001835100", "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100218549", "https://archive.org/details/poems19091925030616mbp", "https://archive.org/details/collectedpoems1900elio", "https://www.fadedpage.com/showbook.php?pid=20200705", "https://archive.org/details/poemswritteninea00elio", "https://theworld.com/~raparker/exploring/tseliot/works/poems/eliot-harvard-poems.html" ], "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)" }, "verification": { "level": "structural-only", "last_checked": "2026-08-12" }, "stats": { "n_lines": 219, "n_stanzas": 35, "n_parts": 6, "longest_line_chars": 82, "max_indent": 3 }, "site_ready": true, "parts": [ { "ordinal": "I", "title": null, "stanza_range": [ 0, 6 ] }, { "ordinal": "II", "title": null, "stanza_range": [ 6, 9 ] }, { "ordinal": "III", "title": null, "stanza_range": [ 9, 14 ] }, { "ordinal": "IV", "title": null, "stanza_range": [ 14, 22 ] }, { "ordinal": "V", "title": null, "stanza_range": [ 22, 29 ] }, { "ordinal": "VI", "title": null, "stanza_range": [ 29, 35 ] } ], "stanzas": [ [ { "text": "Because I do not hope to turn again", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Because I do not hope", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Because I do not hope to turn", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Desiring this man’s gift and that man’s scope", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I no longer strive to strive towards such things", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "(Why should the agèd eagle stretch its wings?)", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Why should I mourn", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The vanished power of the usual reign?", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Because I do not hope to know again", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The infirm glory of the positive hour", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Because I do not think", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Because I know I shall not know", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The one veritable transitory power", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Because I cannot drink", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "There, where trees flower, and springs flow, for there is nothing again", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Because I know that time is always time", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And place is always and only place", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And what is actual is actual only for one time", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And only for one place", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I rejoice that things are as they are and", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I renounce the blessèd face", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And renounce the voice", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Because I cannot hope to turn again", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Consequently I rejoice, having to construct something", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Upon which to rejoice", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "And pray to God to have mercy upon us", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And I pray that I may forget", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "These matters that with myself I too much discuss", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Too much explain", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Because I do not hope to turn again", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Let these words answer", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For what is done, not to be done again", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "May the judgement not be too heavy upon us", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Because these wings are no longer wings to fly", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But merely vans to beat the air", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The air which is now thoroughly small and dry", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Smaller and dryer than the will", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Teach us to care and not to care", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Teach us to sit still.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Pray for us now and at the hour of our death.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Lady, three white leopards sat under a juniper-tree", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In the cool of the day, having fed to satiety", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "On my legs my heart my liver and that which had been contained", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In the hollow round of my skull. And God said", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Shall these bones live? shall these", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Bones live? And that which had been contained", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In the bones (which were already dry) said chirping:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Because of the goodness of this Lady", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And because of her loveliness, and because", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "She honours the Virgin in meditation,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "We shine with brightness. And I who am here dissembled", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Proffer my deeds to oblivion, and my love", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To the posterity of the desert and the fruit of the gourd.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "It is this which recovers", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "My guts the strings of my eyes and the indigestible portions", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Which the leopards reject. The Lady is withdrawn", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In a white gown, to contemplation, in a white gown.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Let the whiteness of bones atone to forgetfulness.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "There is no life in them. As I am forgotten", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And would be forgotten, so I would forget", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Thus devoted, concentrated in purpose. And God said", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Prophesy to the wind, to the wind only for only", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The wind will listen. And the bones sang chirping", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With the burden of the grasshopper, saying", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Lady of silences", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Calm and distressed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Torn and most whole", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Rose of memory", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Rose of forgetfulness", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Exhausted and life-giving", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Worried reposeful", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The single Rose", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Is now the Garden", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Where all loves end", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Terminate torment", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of love unsatisfied", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The greater torment", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of love satisfied", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "End of the endless", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Journey to no end", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Conclusion of all that", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Is inconclusible", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Speech without word and", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Word of no speech", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Grace to the Mother", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For the Garden", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Where all love ends.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Under a juniper-tree the bones sang, scattered and shining", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "We are glad to be scattered, we did little good to each other,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Under a tree in the cool of the day, with the blessing of sand,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Forgetting themselves and each other, united", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In the quiet of the desert. This is the land which ye", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Shall divide by lot. And neither division nor unity", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Matters. This is the land. We have our inheritance.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "At the first turning of the second stair", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I turned and saw below", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The same shape twisted on the banister", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Under the vapour in the fetid air", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Struggling with the devil of the stairs who wears", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The deceitful face of hope and of despair.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "At the second turning of the second stair", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I left them twisting, turning below;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "There were no more faces and the stair was dark,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Damp, jaggèd, like an old man’s mouth drivelling, beyond repair,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Or the toothed gullet of an agèd shark.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "At the first turning of the third stair", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Was a slotted window bellied like the fig’s fruit", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And beyond the hawthorn blossom and a pasture scene", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The broadbacked figure drest in blue and green", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Enchanted the maytime with an antique flute.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Blown hair is sweet, brown hair over the mouth blown,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Lilac and brown hair;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Distraction, music of the flute, stops and steps of the mind over the third stair,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Fading, fading; strength beyond hope and despair", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Climbing the third stair.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Lord, I am not worthy", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Lord, I am not worthy", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "but speak the word only.", "indent": 3 } ], [ { "text": "Who walked between the violet and the violet", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Who walked between", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The various ranks of varied green", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Going in white and blue, in Mary’s colour,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Talking of trivial things", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In ignorance and in knowledge of eternal dolour", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Who moved among the others as they walked,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Who then made strong the fountains and made fresh the springs", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Made cool the dry rock and made firm the sand", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In blue of larkspur, blue of Mary’s colour,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Sovegna vos", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Here are the years that walk between, bearing", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Away the fiddles and the flutes, restoring", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "One who moves in the time between sleep and waking, wearing", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "White light folded, sheathed about her, folded.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The new years walk, restoring", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Through a bright cloud of tears, the years, restoring", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With a new verse the ancient rhyme. Redeem", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The time. Redeem", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The unread vision in the higher dream", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "While jewelled unicorns draw by the gilded hearse.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "The silent sister veiled in white and blue", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Between the yews, behind the garden god,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Whose flute is breathless, bent her head and signed but spoke no word", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "But the fountain sprang up and the bird sang down", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Redeem the time, redeem the dream", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The token of the word unheard, unspoken", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Till the wind shake a thousand whispers from the yew", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "And after this our exile", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "If the lost word is lost, if the spent word is spent", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "If the unheard, unspoken", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Word is unspoken, unheard;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Still is the unspoken word, the Word unheard,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The Word without a word, the Word within", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The world and for the world;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And the light shone in darkness and", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Against the World the unstilled world still whirled", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "About the centre of the silent Word.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "O my people, what have I done unto thee.", "indent": 3 } ], [ { "text": "Where shall the word be found, where will the word", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Resound? Not here, there is not enough silence", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Not on the sea or on the islands, not", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "On the mainland, in the desert or the rain land,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For those who walk in darkness", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Both in the day time and in the night time", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The right time and the right place are not here", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "No place of grace for those who avoid the face", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "No time to rejoice for those who walk among noise and deny the voice", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Will the veiled sister pray for", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Those who walk in darkness, who chose thee and oppose thee,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Those who are torn on the horn between season and season, time and time, between", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Hour and hour, word and word, power and power, those who wait", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In darkness? Will the veiled sister pray", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For children at the gate", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Who will not go away and cannot pray:", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Pray for those who chose and oppose", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "O my people, what have I done unto thee.", "indent": 3 } ], [ { "text": "Will the veiled sister between the slender", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Yew trees pray for those who offend her", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And are terrified and cannot surrender", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And affirm before the world and deny between the rocks", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In the last desert between the last blue rocks", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The desert in the garden the garden in the desert", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of drouth, spitting from the mouth the withered apple-seed.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "O my people.", "indent": 3 } ], [ { "text": "Although I do not hope to turn again", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Although I do not hope", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Although I do not hope to turn", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Wavering between the profit and the loss", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In this brief transit where the dreams cross", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The dreamcrossed twilight between birth and dying", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "(Bless me father) though I do not wish to wish these things", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "From the wide window towards the granite shore", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The white sails still fly seaward, seaward flying", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Unbroken wings", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "And the lost heart stiffens and rejoices", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In the lost lilac and the lost sea voices", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And the weak spirit quickens to rebel", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For the bent golden-rod and the lost sea smell", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Quickens to recover", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The cry of quail and the whirling plover", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And the blind eye creates", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The empty forms between the ivory gates", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And smell renews the salt savour of the sandy earth", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "This is the time of tension between dying and birth", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The place of solitude where three dreams cross", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Between blue rocks", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But when the voices shaken from the yew-tree drift away", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Let the other yew be shaken and reply.", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "Blessèd sister, holy mother, spirit of the fountain, spirit of the garden,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Suffer us not to mock ourselves with falsehood", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Teach us to care and not to care", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Teach us to sit still", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Even among these rocks,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Our peace in His will", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And even among these rocks", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Sister, mother", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And spirit of the river, spirit of the sea,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Suffer me not to be separated", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "And let my cry come unto Thee.", "indent": 0 } ] ] }