The Anathemata

Rite and Fore-time (continued)

These rear-guard details in their quaint attire, heedless of incongruity, unconscious that the flanks are turned and all connecting files are withdrawn or liquidated—that dead symbols litter to the base of the cult-stone,a that the stem by the palledb  stone is thirsty, that the stream is very low.

David Jones notes

additional notes

a cult-stone: altar; this and similar metaphors are very common throughout the poem.

comments

Note the incongruity between the traditional (‘rear-guard’) clothing, gesture and language of the liturgy and the unsacramental world in which they survive.

‘flanks . . . liquidated’: the first of many military metaphors in the poem.

see also

the three themes of wood, stone, water recur throughout the poem; see for example page 56.

semantic structures

glossary

b palled: enfeebled, impaired.