The Anathemata
Rite and Fore-time (page 50)
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in their quaint attire, heedless of incongruity, unconscious that the flanks are turned and all connecting files are withdrawn or liquidated—that dead symbols litter to the base of the cult-stone,a that the stem by the palledb stone is thirsty, that the stream is very low.
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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.