Messiaen was inspired by the words in the Bible where the angel says “There shall be time no longer”. These words have another meaning in relation to the music, because Messiaen does not write music with a regular number of beats in a bar. Like The Rite of Spring, the length of the bars keep changing. Messiaen had heard enough of soldiers marching to a regular one-two-three-four-one-two-three-four during the war. His rhythms in this music develop from little tiny rhythmic patterns