The Sun's Gone Dim and The Sky's Turned Black

The Sun's Gone Dim

The poetry does not matter.
It was not (to start again) what one had expected.
What was to be the value of the long looked forward to,
Long hoped for calm, the autumnal serenity
And the wisdom of age? Had they deceived us
Or deceived themselves, the quiet-voiced elders,
Bequeathing us merely a receipt for deceit?
The serenity only a deliberate hebetude,
The wisdom only the knowledge of dead secrets
Useless in the darkness into which they peered
Or from which they turned their eyes. There is, it seems to us,
At best, only a limited value
In the knowledge derived from experience.

from East Coker
Eliot


This is a piece of North Sea oil pipeline kit being transported through the streets of Wick to a location at Wester where it will be taken out to sea