Against all this

The whimpering advent of Eliot's Hollow Men:

"Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar
Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;"

Against all this, as ever, are clear words spoken in sunlight that feed the heart of one man from another. Against all this, as ever, are those prophetic voices which cut through chains and drag us, blinking, into daylight. Against all this, as ever, are the midwives of souls, the begetters in Christ, the infinite litany of intimacy which is the true and natural order of all things.