Ash Wednesday

a feminine form of writing, seems like a woman wrote this.
But Eliot has escaped the 'prison of the self' and joined the Holy Mother Church and perhaps found peace with something greater than himself, surrendered his individual talent to the tradition.

desiring this man's gift (not art! b/c he has the art but not the gift of inspiration) and that man's scope
and no longer strive to strive towards such things--perhaps he found his gift with his conversion? since the aged eagle stretched it's wings (in keeping with the bird reference from the Shakespearean sonnet) however this bird is not a lark singing praise but an old eagle mourning
selfish desires; no longer burdened by the opinions of others; no longer cares what others think he's given up on people (since he's an eagle) and the (now vanished) power of the usual reign is what held Prufrock back.

Unlike Prufrock, where he stays in the dreamworld (...till human voices wake us and we drown) and the Waste Land, staying in the dry lands and hearing the thunder but never reaching the rain, and Hollow Men who never cross the river to death's other kingdom, Ash Wednesday's liminality(?) allows the author to cross the boundaries, cross the threshold from frustration towards relief: he's moving up, spiraling up towards heaven instead of circling around the same level of hell.
Has to stop torturing himself in order to allow God a place in his heart

2nd stanza--cleansing and crossing the threshold to climb the stair in 3rd stanza