“Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom”–
T.S. Eliot, “The Hollow Men” (1925).
Notes on lines 86-87: from Aristotelian philosophy, “matter only has potency until form gives it existence”.
Notes on lines 88-89: from Platonic philosophy, “the essence is the inapprehensible ideal, which finds material expression in its descent to the lower, material plane of reality.”
