believed his finest achievement was writing the broadly religious poem “Four Quartets” (1943). It deals with the themes of incarnation, time and eternity, spiritual insight and revelation, culminating in an allusion to Pentecost: The dove descending breaks the air With flame of incandescent terror Of which the tongues declare The one discharge from sin and error. The only hope, or else despair Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre— To be redeemed from fire by fire. In The Idea of a Christian Society