The thread of Fred Longworth's B.J. links to I think took its impetus from the one I was remembering, in which Clive was quoting from "The Auroras of Autumn." In any event, looking back through it I noticed I posted the end of "Little Gidding," which forgetfully I was about to do again. This time I will only quote the last line, which goes:
"And the fire and the rose are one."
This line, it has been pointed out to me, has 26 letters, obviously the number of the alphabet. It is sustained by the mystical 4/3 structure, ("and the and the" / "fire - rose - one"), the elements and the trinity (It will be recognized that each Quartet represents one element, Air, Earth, Water & Fire). The other word is "are," the "copula of being," as somebody (Coleridge?) called it, which in the scheme of Eliot's poem is like the fifth part which binds together each quartet, or the Empedoclean quintessence, the love/hate duality, which drives the combining and disjoining of the standard four elements. All of these features I consider to be miraculous. Do I have to say I think this is a great ending? I do.
The unity of the fire and the rose represents the mystical fusion of the two most important symbols throughout the poem, from the rose garden at the beginning of Burnt Norton to Little Gidding's "refining fire / where you must move in measure, like a dancer." Throughout we are to understand the influence of Heraclitus, who said, among other things, "The universe is an ever-living flame being kindled in measures and extinguished in measures." But one could talk forever. I'll stop now.
Chris
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