- Theme
Burnt Norton I · Line 11 ·Footfalls echo in the memory
The first concrete image of the poem is a sound, and a remembered one: footsteps heard as echoes. The movement changes register here, from the philosopher’s propositions to the language of dream and memory — corridors, doors, gardens. Echo will recur throughout the passage: words echo in the reader’s mind, other echoes inhabit the garden, a bird answers music no one hears.