A Good Piece of Poetic Prose

I can't help but be mesmerized by the closing paragraph of this book. What I'm referring to is the book Exploring Our Living Planet by Robert D. Ballard. It was a gift by my mom when I was little but I only got to read it in full when I was in college (and I was bored).

It's actually a geography book, complete with fascinating pictures of vistas, volcanoes, and other landscapes, and enriched by an equally compelling narrative by the author as he tells the story about the depths and mysteries of the Earth.

Here's the last paragraph:

Whatever it is that moves the plates, we should hope that it continues. For when it stops - when the mountains no longer wring out the clouds nor volcanoes rejuvenate the soil - then the mountains will wash into the sea, never to return, and the face of our world will again be "without form, and void." And so we have the central paradox of our living planet - that its most violent and destructive forces make life possible upon its face.

After which, an excerpt from T.S. Eliot provides the perfect closure for a book on geography, the science of knowing what shapes the Earth and how it all began:

We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.

Through the unknown, remembered gate

When the last of earth left to discover

Is that which was the beginning....

T.S. Eliot