The river is a strong brown god

'I do not know much about gods; but I think the river
Is a strong brown god – sullen, untamed and intractable,
Patient to some degree, at first recognised as a frontier:
Useful, untrustworthy, as a conveyor of commerce;
Then only a problem confronting the builder of bridges.
The problem once solved, the brown god is almost forgotten
By the dwellers in the cities – ever, however implacable,
Keeping his seasons and rages, destroyer, reminder
Of what men choose to forget. Unhonoured, unapropriated
By worshipers of the machine, but waiting, watching and
waiting.
His rhythm was present in the nursery bedroom,
In the rank ailanthus of the April dooryard,
In the smell of grapes on the autumn table,
And the evening circle in the winter gaslight.'

- T.S.Elliot Four Quartets The Dry Salvages Stanza 1

I received T.S.Elliot's Four Quartets as birthday present from my brother four years ago and I am still working through this masterpiece. I find the Four Quartets breathtaking in places and like a pebble in my shoe in others where a particular line or turn of phrase nags away in my subconscious. I try to ignore it, but eventually have to stop and deal with it. How can I resist with such powerful openings such as the first line of East Coker, which begins thus: ’In my beginning is my end.’ I am just as blown away each and every time I read that line. Elegant in its simplicity, yet even after four years of working through its permutations and resonances, I still feel I am missing something, and have a nagging suspicion that what I am missing is not to be found in its depth of meaning, but is right in front of me, just floating there on the surface.