Today we went on a journey to Little Gidding, the place that inspired TS Eliot's poem. In the early 17th century there was a religious community there, founded by the Farrar family.
It is a remote and out of the way place. We visited the tiny church, and then went next door to the tea room for refreshments. I hadn't brought any cash with me, but being a tourist site of a kind I expected that I could pay for tea by debit card.
We were welcomed at the door like lost relatives by the couple who are now wardens of the property, Rev Tony and Judith Hodgson. I asked if they took cards: they wouldn't hear of it, and gave us all tea and cakes and juice. We were treated to a slide show detailing the history of Little Gidding and the communities who have lived and prayed there.
Eliot only went there once, on a May afternoon in 1936:
If you came this way,
Taking the route you would be likely to take
From the place you would be likely to come from,
If you came this way in may time, you would find the hedges
White again, in May, with voluptuary sweetness.
It would be the same at the end of the journey,
If you came at night like a broken king,
If you came by day not knowing what you came for,
It would be the same, when you leave the rough road
And turn behind the pig-sty to the dull facade
And the tombstone.
These words come now to life... I can see the rough road, and the pig-sty, the dull facade of the little church building, and the Farrar tombstone in front of it. Charles 1, the 'broken king' on the run from the Roundheads, sought solace Little Gidding in 1646 after coming here in more peaceful times.
If you came this way,
Taking any route, starting from anywhere,
At any time or at any season,
It would always be the same: you would have to put off
Sense and notion. You are not here to verify,
Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity
Or carry report. You are here to kneel
Where prayer has been valid. And prayer is more
Than an order of words, the conscious occupation
Of the praying mind, or the sound of the voice praying.
And what the dead had no speech for, when living,
They can tell you, being dead: the communication
Of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living.
Somehow, for once, tourism became pilgrimage.
http://www.littlegiddingchurch.org.uk/
3 comments:
I've always loved Little Gidding. Reading Eliot in year 11 was the start of a complete turnaround in my attitude to English where I ended up doing English honours after hating English until year 11. It was only gradually that Eliot's faith also became important.
George Herbert's church is apparently a few miles away, too.
Hi Michael,
As I have strong links with the Pilsdon Community, I thought it was about time someone reimagined Eliot's Four Quartets. My efforts are at:
http://foriamphl.blogspot.com/
and even if you don't like the poetry, there are some nice b&w photod of the community circa 1993.
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