In a message dated 3/14/2008 3:49:58 PM Central Daylight Time, jansy@AETERN.US writes:

A.Stadlen: where is Shade supposed to be getting the word from? [...]

JM: A good find ( Eliot-Rote-Sea) and a good question ( where is Shade supposed to be getting the word from?).
Eliot in "The Dry Salvages" was referring to "a small group of rocks, with a beacon, off the N.E. coast of Cape Ann,Massachusetts", therefore the link bt. old England and New England was brought back by the term "rote".

One point is that "The Dry Salvages" first appeared in 1941, and that Night Rote was supposed to have been Shade's second book of verse. It seems likely that this book would have appeared before 1941, unless Shade was some kind of unrecorded late-bloomer (like, say, Frost). Of course, VN may have known the line, but I can't imagine him reading TSE that closely. Since both JS and VN didn't care for Eliot, why would either have lifted a title from him?

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