In T. S. Eliot’s correspondence surrounding the publication of Four Quartets archived in the Eliot website, he described “Little Gidding” as a “patriotic” poem, an offer of hope and encouragement to a war-torn nation reeling in spring 1941 from the trauma of nearly eight months of aerial bombardment by the Nazi Luftwaffe, 57 straight nights during which an estimated 400,000 bombs and incendiary devices were dropped on the city and its environs. As part of the German strategy to eventually launch an amphibious invasion of England, this so-called Blitzkrieg (or “lightning war”) was designed to reduce key British cities to ruins and to demoralize the British people into a quick surrender. Because the bombings were indiscriminate, torching hospitals, homes, schools, churches, as well as businesses, casualties were high—more than 50,000 British citizens died in the bombings.

Far from demoralizing the British, however, the response to the Blitzkrieg, voiced by the stirring oratory of Prime Minister Winston Churchill, rallied the English people. Eliot, then in his fifties, volunteered to serve in the city’s massive Air Raid Patrol. His responsibility was to walk the London streets during the night and shepherd terrified residents to underground shelters, report unexploded devices or spot-fires, and even provide triage medical attention.