Old men ought to be explorers
Here and there does not matter
We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,
The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters
of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning.…Not fare well,
But fare forward, voyagers.
—Eliot, from the greatest poem of the last century
I keep wanting to say something about this, but find it impossible. It has a certain perfection to it that will only be destroyed by breaking it up into little parts that are less than the whole.
AMDG
The pieces are actually far away from each other in the poem. The first is the end of “East Coker,” the second the end of section III of “The Dry Salvages”.
A little before the “East Coker” part is “Do not let me hear of the wisdom of old men, but rather of their folly.”
Well, really I wasn’t thinking too much about those last two lines.
AMDG
Interesting–those two lines were the main reason I did the post. They had been much in my mind for a day or two.
Well, I wasn’t thinking them as a part of the whole, but I have been thinking about them a little.
I’ve been wondering about fare well instead of farewell.
AMDG
I took “fare well” to be a way of emphasizing the literal sense–“travel well” or “have a good trip”–as opposed to our conventional sense of “I don’t expect to see you for a while”. That whether or not we fare well is not the important thing.
I was thinking more along the lines of doing well. It doesn’t matter if we DO well? Not in the sense of performing well, but thriving.
AMDG
I think the sense is something like “don’t expect to be comfortable.” Depends on what sort of thriving you mean, I guess, whether that would fit.
Right. That’s pretty much what I meant. I had trouble finding the right word.
AMDG
Light On Dark Water 
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