Who is the third who walks always beside you? When I count, there are only you and I together But when I look ahead up the white road There is always another one walking beside you Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded I do not know whether a man or a woman- But who is that on the other side of you? T.S. Eliot
About This Quote

Who is the third who walks always beside you? The question that is asked in this poem is who is the third person that walks or accompanies you in life. Who is the one who walks always beside you? The poem actually asks two questions. The first question is “Who is the third?” which leads to the second question “who is the one who walks always beside you?” The answer to both questions are “it could be an angel or it could be a person.” The poem then continues on into what the speaker imagines the person to look like. The speaker then asks if it’s a man or a woman, and then asks who it might be.

The answer to both questions are also unknown because either there are no angels or there are no people walking with us behind us. The same can be said for our past, present, and future.

Source: The Waste Land And Other Poems

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More Quotes By T.S. Eliot
  1. Do I dare Disturb the universe? In a minute there is time For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
  2. For I have known them all already, known them all– Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.
  3. There will be time, there will be time To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet.
  4. There is one who remembers the way to your door: Life you may evade, but Death you shall not.
  5. In my end is my beginning.
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