=* A Distributed Proofreaders Canada eBook *= This eBook is made available at no cost and with very few restrictions. These restrictions apply only if (1) you make a change in the eBook (other than alteration for different display devices), or (2) you are making commercial use of the eBook. If either of these conditions applies, please contact a https://www.fadedpage.com administrator before proceeding. Thousands more FREE eBooks are available at https://www.fadedpage.com. This work is in the Canadian public domain, but may be under copyright in some countries. If you live outside Canada, check your country's copyright laws. IF THE BOOK IS UNDER COPYRIGHT IN YOUR COUNTRY, DO NOT DOWNLOAD OR REDISTRIBUTE THIS FILE. _Title:_ Selected Poems _Date of first publication:_ 1948 _Author:_ T. S. Eliot (1888-1965) _Date first posted:_ July 3, 2020 _Date last updated:_ July 3, 2020 Faded Page eBook #20200705 This eBook was produced by: Al Haines, Cindy Beyer & the online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at https://www.pgdpcanada.net [Cover Illustration] T H E P E N G U I N P O E T S D 4 S E L E C T E D P O E M S T . S . E L I O T =S E L E C T E D P O E M S= * * * * * =T . S . E L I O T= =P E N G U I N B O O K S= =I N A S S O C I A T I O N W I T H= =F A B E R A N D F A B E R= THIS SELECTION FROM T. S. ELIOT’S POEMS FIRST PUBLISHED IN PENGUIN BOOKS 1948 REPRINTED 1951 MADE AND PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN FOR PENGUIN BOOKS LTD HARMONDSWORTH, MIDDLESEX BY HUNT, BARNARD AND COMPANY LTD AYLESBURY, BUCKS C O N T E N T S PRUFROCK AND OTHER OBSERVATIONS The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock 9 Portrait of a Lady 15 Preludes 20 Rhapsody on a Windy Night 23 POEMS 1920 Gerontion 29 Burbank with a Baedeker: Bleistein with a Cigar 32 Sweeney Erect 34 A Cooking Egg 36 The Hippopotamus 38 Whispers of Immortality 40 Mr. Eliot’s Sunday Morning Service 42 Sweeney Among the Nightingales 44 THE WASTE LAND I The Burial of the Dead 49 II A Game of Chess 52 III The Fire Sermon 56 IV Death by Water 61 V What the Thunder Said 62 Notes 66 THE HOLLOW MEN 75 ASH-WEDNESDAY 81 ARIEL POEMS Journey of the Magi 95 A Song for Simeon 97 Animula 99 Marina 101 CHORUSES FROM ‘THE ROCK’ Chorus I 105 Chorus II 110 Chorus III 113 Chorus VII 116 Chorus IX 120 Chorus X 123 P R U F R O C K and Other Observations 1917 For Jean Verdenal, 1889-1915 mort aux Dardanelles _Or puoi la quantitate_ _comprender dell’ amor ch’a te mi scalda,_ _quando dismento nostra vanitate,_ _trattando l’ombre come cosa salda._ _The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock_ _S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse_ _A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,_ _Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse._ _Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo_ _Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il rero,_ _Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo._ Let us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the sky Like a patient etherised upon a table; Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, The muttering retreats Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells: Streets that follow like a tedious argument Of insidious intent To lead you to an overwhelming question . . . Oh, do not ask, ‘What is it?’ Let us go and make our visit. In the room the women come and go Talking of Michelangelo. The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes, The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening, Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains, Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys, Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap, And seeing that it was a soft October night, Curled once about the house, and fell asleep. And indeed there will be time For the yellow smoke that slides along the street Rubbing its back upon the window-panes; There will be time, there will be time To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet; There will be time to murder and create, And time for all the works and days of hands That lift and drop a question on your plate; Time for you and time for me, And time yet for a hundred indecisions, And for a hundred visions and revisions, Before the taking of a toast and tea. In the room the women come and go Talking of Michelangelo. And indeed there will be time To wonder, ‘Do I dare?’ and, ‘Do I dare?’ Time to turn back and descend the stair, With a bald spot in the middle of my hair— [They will say: ‘How his hair is growing thin!’] My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin, My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin— [They will say: ‘But how his arms and legs are thin!’] Do I dare Disturb the universe? In a minute there is time For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. 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; I know the voices dying with a dying fall Beneath the music from a farther room. So how should I presume? And I have known the eyes already, known them all— The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase, And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin, When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall, Then how should I begin To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways? And how should I presume? And I have known the arms already, known them all— Arms that are braceleted and white and bare [But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!] Is it perfume from a dress That makes me so digress? Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl. And should I then presume? And how should I begin? . . . . Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? . . . I should have been a pair of ragged claws Scuttling across the floors of silent seas. . . . . And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully! Smoothed by long fingers, Asleep . . . tired . . . or it malingers, Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me. Should I, after tea and cakes and ices, Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis? But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed, Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter, I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter; I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker, And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, And in short, I was afraid. And would it have been worth it, after all, After the cups, the marmalade, the tea, Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me, Would it have been worth while, To have bitten off the matter with a smile, To have squeezed the universe into a ball To roll it toward some overwhelming question, To say: ‘I am Lazarus, come from the dead, Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all’— If one, settling a pillow by her head, Should say: ‘That is not what I meant at all. That is not it, at all.’ And would it have been worth it, after all, Would it have been worth while, After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets, After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor— And this, and so much more?— It is impossible to say just what I mean! But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen: Would it have been worth while If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl, And turning toward the window, should say: ‘That is not it at all, That is not what I meant, at all.’ . . . . No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be; Am an attendant lord, one that will do To swell a progress, start a scene or two, Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool, Deferential, glad to be of use, Politic, cautious, and meticulous; Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse; At times, indeed, almost ridiculous— Almost, at times, the Fool. I grow old . . . I grow old . . . I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach? I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think that they will sing to me. I have seen them riding seaward on the waves Combing the white hair of the waves blown back When the wind blows the water white and black. We have lingered in the chambers of the sea By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown Till human voices wake us, and we drown. _Portrait of a Lady_ _Thou hast committed—_ _Fornication: but that was in another country,_ _And besides, the wench is dead._ The Jew of Malta I Among the smoke and fog of a December afternoon You have the scene arrange itself—as it will seem to do— With ‘I have saved this afternoon for you’; And four wax candles in the darkened room, Four rings of light upon the ceiling overhead, An atmosphere of Juliet’s tomb Prepared for all the things to be said, or left unsaid. We have been, let us say, to hear the latest Pole Transmit the Preludes, through his hair and finger-tips. ‘So intimate, this Chopin, that I think his soul Should be resurrected only among friends Some two or three, who will not touch the bloom That is rubbed and questioned in the concert room.’ —And so the conversation slips Among velleities and carefully caught regrets Through attenuated tones of violins Mingled with remote cornets And begins. ‘You do not know how much they mean to me, my friends, And how, how rare and strange it is, to find In a life composed so much, so much of odds and ends, [For indeed I do not love it . . . you knew? you are not blind! How keen you are!] To find a friend who has these qualities, Who has, and gives Those qualities upon which friendship lives. How much it means that I say this to you— Without these friendships—life, what _cauchemar_!’ Among the windings of the violins And the ariettes Of cracked cornets Inside my brain a dull tom-tom begins Absurdly hammering a prelude of its own, Capricious monotone That is at least one definite ‘false note’. —Let us take the air, in a tobacco trance, Admire the monuments, Discuss the late events, Correct our watches by the public clocks. Then sit for half an hour and drink our bocks. II Now that lilacs are in bloom She has a bowl of lilacs in her room And twists one in her fingers while she talks. ‘Ah, my friend, you do not know, you do not know What life is, you who hold it in your hands’; (Slowly twisting the lilac stalks) ‘You let it flow from you, you let it flow, And youth is cruel, and has no remorse And smiles at situations which it cannot see.’ I smile, of course, And go on drinking tea. ‘Yet with these April sunsets, that somehow recall My buried life, and Paris in the Spring, I feel immeasurably at peace, and find the world To be wonderful and youthful, after all.’ The voice returns like the insistent out-of-tune Of a broken violin on an August afternoon: ‘I am always sure that you understand My feelings, always sure that you feel, Sure that across the gulf you reach your hand. You are invulnerable, you have no Achilles’ heel. You will go on, and when you have prevailed You can say: at this point many a one has failed. But what have I, but what have I, my friend, To give you, what can you receive from me? Only the friendship and the sympathy Of one about to reach her journey’s end. I shall sit here, serving tea to friends . . .’ I take my hat: how can I make a cowardly amends For what she has said to me? You will see me any morning in the park Reading the comics and the sporting page. Particularly I remark An English countess goes upon the stage. A Greek was murdered at a Polish dance, Another bank defaulter has confessed. I keep my countenance, I remain self-possessed Except when a street piano, mechanical and tired Reiterates some worn-out common song With the smell of hyacinths across the garden Recalling things that other people have desired. Are these ideas right or wrong? III The October night comes down; returning as before Except for a slight sensation of being ill at ease I mount the stairs and turn the handle of the door And feel as if I had mounted on my hands and knees. ‘And so you are going abroad; and when do you return? But that’s a useless question. You hardly know when you are coming back, You will find so much to learn.’ My smile falls heavily among the bric-a-brac. ‘Perhaps you can write to me.’ My self-possession flares up for a second; _This_ is as I had reckoned. ‘I have been wondering frequently of late (But our beginnings never know our ends!), Why we have not developed into friends.’ I feel like one who smiles, and turning shall remark Suddenly, his expression in a glass. My self-possession gutters; we are really in the dark. ‘For everybody said so, all our friends, They all were sure our feelings would relate So closely! I myself can hardly understand. We must leave it now to fate. You will write, at any rate. Perhaps it is not too late. I shall sit here, serving tea to friends.’ And I must borrow every changing shape To find expression . . . dance, dance Like a dancing bear, Cry like a parrot, chatter like an ape. Let us take the air, in a tobacco trance— Well! and what if she should die some afternoon, Afternoon grey and smoky, evening yellow and rose; Should die and leave me sitting pen in hand With the smoke coming down above the housetops; Doubtful, for a while Not knowing what to feel or if I understand Or whether wise or foolish, tardy or too soon . . . Would she not have the advantage, after all? This music is successful with a ‘dying fall’ Now that we talk of dying— And should I have the right to smile? _Preludes_ I The winter evening settles down With smell of steaks in passageways. Six o’clock. The burnt-out ends of smoky days. And now a gusty shower wraps The grimy scraps Of withered leaves about your feet And newspapers from vacant lots; The showers beat On broken blinds and chimney-pots, And at the corner of the street A lonely cab-horse steams and stamps. And then the lighting of the lamps. II The morning comes to consciousness Of faint stale smells of beer From the sawdust-trampled street With all its muddy feet that press To early coffee-stands. With the other masquerades That time resumes, One thinks of all the hands That are raising dingy shades In a thousand furnished rooms. III You tossed a blanket from the bed, You lay upon your back, and waited; You dozed, and watched the night revealing The thousand sordid images Of which your soul was constituted; They flickered against the ceiling. And when all the world came back And the light crept up between the shutters And you heard the sparrows in the gutters, You had such a vision of the street As the street hardly understands; Sitting along the bed’s edge, where You curled the papers from your hair, Or clasped the yellow soles of feet In the palms of both soiled hands. IV His soul stretched tight across the skies That fade behind a city block, Or trampled by insistent feet At four and five and six o’clock; And short square fingers stuffing pipes, And evening newspapers, and eyes Assured of certain centainties, The conscience of a blackened street Impatient to assume the world. I am moved by fancies that are curled Around these images, and cling: The notion of some infinitely gentle Infinitely suffering thing. Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh; The worlds revolve like ancient women Gathering fuel in vacant lots. _Rhapsody on a Windy Night_ Twelve o’clock. Along the reaches of the street Held in a lunar synthesis, Whispering lunar incantations Dissolve the floors of memory And all its clear relations, Its divisions and precisions, Every street lamp that I pass Beats like a fatalistic drum, And through the spaces of the dark Midnight shakes the memory As a madman shakes a dead geranium. Half-past one, The street-lamp sputtered, The street-lamp muttered, The street-lamp said, ‘Regard that woman Who hesitates toward you in the light of the door Which opens on her like a grin. You see the border of her dress Is torn and stained with sand, And you see the corner of her eye Twists like a crooked pin.’ The memory throws up high and dry A crowd of twisted things; A twisted branch upon the beach Eaten smooth, and polished As if the world gave up The secret of its skeleton, Stiff and white. A broken spring in a factory yard, Rust that clings to the form that the strength has left Hard and curled and ready to snap. Half-past two, The street-lamp said, ‘Remark the cat which flattens itself in the gutter, Slips out its tongue And devours a morsel of rancid butter.’ So the hand of the child, automatic, Slipped out and pocketed a toy that was running along the quay. I could see nothing behind that child’s eye. I have seen eyes in the street Trying to peer through lighted shutters, And a crab one afternoon in a pool, An old crab with barnacles on his back, Gripped the end of a stick which I held him. Half-past three, The lamp sputtered, The lamp muttered in the dark. The lamp hummed: ‘Regard the moon, La lune ne garde aucune rancune, She winks a feeble eye, She smiles into corners. She smooths the hair of the grass. The moon has lost her memory. A washed-out smallpox cracks her face, Her hand twists a paper rose, That smells of dust and eau de Cologne, She is alone With all the old nocturnal smells That cross and cross across her brain.’ The reminiscence comes Of sunless dry geraniums And dust in crevices, Smells of chestnuts in the streets, And female smells in shuttered rooms, And cigarettes in corridors And cocktail smells in bars. The lamp said, ‘Four o’clock, Here is the number on the door. Memory! You have the key, The little lamp spreads a ring on the stair. Mount. The bed is open; the tooth-brush hangs on the wall, Put your shoes at the door, sleep, prepare for life.’ The last twist of the knife. POEMS 1920 _Gerontion_ _Thou hast nor youth nor age_ _But as it were an after dinner sleep_ _Dreaming of both._ Here I am, an old man in a dry month, Being read to by a boy, waiting for rain. I was neither at the hot gates Nor fought in the warm rain Nor knee deep in the salt marsh, heaving a cutlass, Bitten by flies, fought. My house is a decayed house, And the jew squats on the window sill, the owner, Spawned in some estaminet of Antwerp, Blistered in Brussels, patched and peeled in London. The goat coughs at night in the field overhead; Rocks, moss, stonecrop, iron, merds. The woman keeps the kitchen, makes tea, Sneezes at evening, poking the peevish gutter. I an old man, A dull head among windy spaces. Signs are taken for wonders, ‘We would see a sign!’ The word within a word, unable to speak a word, Swaddled with darkness. In the juvescence of the year Came Christ the tiger In depraved May, dogwood and chestnut, flowering judas, To be eaten, to be divided, to be drunk Among whispers; by Mr. Silvero With caressing hands, at Limoges Who walked all night in the next room; By Hakagawa, bowing among the Titians; By Madame de Tornquist, in the dark room Shifting the candles; Fräulein von Kulp Who turned in the hall, one hand on the door. Vacant shuttles Weave the wind. I have no ghosts, An old man in a draughty house Under a windy knob. After such knowledge, what forgiveness? Think now History has many cunning passages, contrived corridors And issues, deceives with whispering ambitions, Guides us by vanities. Think now She gives when our attention is distracted And what she gives, gives with such supple confusions That the giving famishes the craving. Gives too late What’s not believed in, or if still believed, In memory only, reconsidered passion. Gives too soon Into weak hands, what’s thought can be dispensed with Till the refusal propagates a fear. Think Neither fear nor courage saves us. Unnatural vices Are fathered by our heroism. Virtues Are forced upon us by our impudent crimes. These tears are shaken from the wrath-bearing tree. The tiger springs in the new year. Us he devours. Think at last We have not reached conclusion, when I Stiffen in a rented house. Think at last I have not made this show purposelessly And it is not by any concitation Of the backward devils. I would meet you upon this honestly. I that was near your heart was removed therefrom To lose beauty in terror, terror in inquisition. I have lost my passion: why should I need to keep it Since what is kept must be adulterated? I have lost my sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch: How should I use them for your closer contact? These with a thousand small deliberations Protract the profit of their chilled delirium, Excite the membrane, when the sense has cooled, With pungent sauces, multiply variety In a wilderness of mirrors. What will the spider do, Suspend its operations, will the weevil Delay? De Bailhache, Fresca, Mrs. Cammel, whirled Beyond the circuit of the shuddering Bear In fractured atoms. Gull against the wind, in the windy straits Of Belle Isle, or running on the Horn, White feathers in the snow, the Gulf claims, And an old man driven by the Trades To a sleepy corner. Tenants of the house, Thoughts of a dry brain in a dry season. _Burbank with a Baedeker: Bleistein with a Cigar_ _Tra-la-la-la-la-la-laire—nil nisi divinum stabile est: caetera fumus—the gondola stopped, the old palace was there, how charming its grey and pink—goats and monkeys, with such hair too!—so the countess passed on until she came through the little park, where Niobe presented her with a cabinet, and so departed._ Burbank crossed a little bridge Descending at a small hotel; Princess Volupine arrived, They were together, and he fell. Defunctive music under sea Passed seaward with the passing bell Slowly: the God Hercules Had left him, that had loved him well. The horses, under the axletree Beat up the dawn from Istria With even feet. Her shuttered barge Burned on the water all the day. But this or such was Bleistein’s way: A saggy bending of the knees And elbows, with the palms turned out, Chicago Semite Viennese. A lustreless protrusive eye Stares from the protozoic slime At a perspective of Canaletto. The smoky candle end of time Declines. On the Rialto once. The rats are underneath the piles. The jew is underneath the lot. Money in furs. The boatman smiles, Princess Volupine extends A meagre, blue-nailed, phthisic hand To climb the waterstair. Lights, lights, She entertains Sir Ferdinand Klein. Who clipped the lion’s wings And flea’d his rump and pared his claws? Thought Burbank, meditating on Time’s ruins, and the seven laws. _Sweeney Erect_ _And the trees about me,_ _Let them be dry and leafless: let the rocks_ _Groan with continual surges; and behind me_ _Make all a desolation. Look, look, wenches!_ Paint me a cavernous waste shore Cast in the unstilled Cyclades, Paint me the bold anfractuous rocks Faced by the snarled and yelping seas. Display me Aeolus above Reviewing the insurgent gales Which tangle Ariadne’s hair And swell with haste the perjured sails. Morning stirs the feet and hands (Nausicaa and Polypheme). Gesture of orang-outang Rises from the sheets in steam. This withered root of knots of hair Slitted below and gashed with eyes, This oval O cropped out with teeth: The sickle motion from the thighs Jackknifes upward at the knees Then straightens out from heel to hip Pushing the framework of the bed And clawing at the pillow slip. Sweeney addressed full length to shave Broadbottomed, pink from nape to base, Knows the female temperament And wipes the suds around his face. (The lengthened shadow of a man Is history, said Emerson Who had not seen the silhouette Of Sweeney straddled in the sun.) Tests the razor on his leg Waiting until the shriek subsides. The epileptic on the bed Curves backward, clutching at her sides. The ladies of the corridor Find themselves involved, disgraced, Call witness to their principles And deprecate the lack of taste Observing that hysteria Might easily be misunderstood; Mrs. Turner intimates It does the house no sort of good. But Doris, towelled from the bath, Enters padding on broad feet, Bringing sal volatile And a glass of brandy neat. _A Cooking Egg_ _En l’an trentiesme de mon aage_ _Que toutes mes hontes j’ay beues . . ._ Pipit sate upright in her chair Some distance from where I was sitting; _Views of the Oxford Colleges_ Lay on the table, with the knitting. Daguerreotypes and silhouettes, Her grandfather and great aunts, Supported on the mantelpiece An _Invitation to the Dance_. . . . . I shall not want Honour in Heaven For I shall meet Sir Philip Sidney And have talk with Coriolanus And other heroes of that kidney. I shall not want Capital in Heaven For I shall meet Sir Alfred Mond. We two shall lie together, lapt In a five per cent. Exchequer Bond. I shall not want Society in Heaven, Lucretia Borgia shall be my Bride; Her anecdotes will be more amusing Than Pipit’s experience could provide. I shall not want Pipit in Heaven: Madame Blavatsky will instruct me In the Seven Sacred Trances; Piccarda de Donati will conduct me. . . . . But where is the penny world I bought To eat with Pipit behind the screen? The red-eyed scavengers are creeping From Kentish Town and Golder’s Green; Where are the eagles and the trumpets? Buried beneath some snow-deep Alps. Over buttered scones and crumpets Weeping, weeping multitudes Droop in a hundred A.B.C.’s. _The Hippopotamus_ _And when this epistle is read among you, cause that it be read also in the church of the Laodiceans._ The broad-backed hippopotamus Rests on his belly in the mud; Although he seems so firm to us He is merely flesh and blood. Flesh and blood is weak and frail, Susceptible to nervous shock; While the True Church can never fail For it is based upon a rock. The hippo’s feeble steps may err In compassing material ends, While the True Church need never stir To gather in its dividends. The ’potamus can never reach The mango on the mango-tree; But fruits of pomegranate and peach Refresh the Church from over sea. At mating time the hippo’s voice Betrays inflexions hoarse and odd, But every week we hear rejoice The Church, at being one with God. The hippopotamus’s day Is passed in sleep; at night he hunts; God works in a mysterious way— The Church can sleep and feed at once. I saw the ’potamus take wing Ascending from the damp savannas, And quiring angels round him sing The praise of God, in loud hosannas. Blood of the Lamb shall wash him clean And him shall heavenly arms enfold, Among the saints he shall be seen Performing on a harp of gold. He shall be washed as white as snow, By all the martyr’d virgins kist, While the True Church remains below Wrapt in the old miasmal mist. _Whispers of Immortality_ Webster was much possessed by death And saw the skull beneath the skin; And breastless creatures under ground Leaned backward with a lipless grin. Daffodil bulbs instead of balls Stared from the sockets of the eyes! He knew that thought clings round dead limbs Tightening its lusts and luxuries. Donne, I suppose, was such another Who found no substitute for sense, To seize and clutch and penetrate; Expert beyond experience, He knew the anguish of the marrow The ague of the skeleton; No contact possible to flesh Allayed the fever of the bone. . . . . Grishkin is nice: her Russian eye Is underlined for emphasis; Uncorseted, her friendly bust Gives promise of pneumatic bliss. The couched Brazilian jaguar Compels the scampering marmoset With subtle effluence of cat; Grishkin has a maisonnette; The sleek Brazilian jaguar Does not in its arboreal gloom Distil so rank a feline smell As Grishkin in a drawing-room. And even the Abstract Entities Circumambulate her charm; But our lot crawls between dry ribs To keep our metaphysics warm. _Mr. Eliot’s Sunday Morning Service_ _Look, look, master, here comes two religious caterpillars._ The Jew of Malta Polyphiloprogenitive The sapient sutlers of the Lord Drift across the window-panes. In the beginning was the Word. In the beginning was the Word. Superfetation of τὸ ἔν, And at the mensual turn of time Produced enervate Origen. A painter of the Umbrian school Designed upon a gesso ground The nimbus of the Baptized God. The wilderness is cracked and browned But through the water pale and thin Still shine the unoffending feet And there above the painter set The Father and the Paraclete. . . . . The sable presbyters approach The avenue of penitence; The young are red and pustular Clutching piaculative pence. Under the penitential gates Sustained by staring Seraphim Where the souls of the devout Burn invisible and dim. Along the garden-wall the bees With hairy bellies pass between The staminate and pistillate, Blest office of the epicene. Sweeney shifts from ham to ham Stirring the water in his bath. The masters of the subtle schools Are controversial, polymath. _Sweeney Among the Nightingales_ ὤμοι, πέπληγμαι χαιρίαν πληγὴν ἔοω. Apeneck Sweeney spreads his knees Letting his arms hang down to laugh, The zebra stripes along his jaw Swelling to maculate giraffe. The circles of the stormy moon Slide westward toward the River Plate, Death and the Raven drift above And Sweeney guards the horned gate. Gloomy Orion and the Dog Are veiled; and hushed the shrunken seas; The person in the Spanish cape Tries to sit on Sweeney’s knees Slips and pulls the table cloth Overturns a coffee-cup, Reorganised upon the floor She yawns and draws a stocking up; The silent man in mocha brown Sprawls at the window-sill and gapes; The waiter brings in oranges Bananas figs and hothouse grapes; The silent vertebrate in brown Contracts and concentrates, withdraws; Rachel _née_ Rabinovitch Tears at the grapes with murderous paws; She and the lady in the cape Are suspect, thought to be in league; Therefore the man with heavy eyes Declines the gambit, shows fatigue, Leaves the room and reappears Outside the window, leaning in, Branches of wistaria Circumscribe a golden grin; The host with someone indistinct Converses at the door apart, The nightingales are singing near The Convent of the Sacred Heart, And sang within the bloody wood When Agamemnon cried aloud, And let their liquid siftings fall To stain the stiff dishonoured shroud. THE WASTE LAND 1922 ‘Nam Sibyllam quidem Cumis ego ipse oculis meis vidi in ampulla pendere, et cum illi pueri dicerent: Σίβυλλα τί θέλειξ; respondebat illa: ἀποθαυεἴν θέλω.’ For Ezra Pound _il miglior fabbro_ I. _The Burial of the Dead_ April is the cruellest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain. Winter kept us warm, covering Earth in forgetful snow, feeding A little life with dried tubers. Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade, And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten, 10 And drank coffee, and talked for an hour. Bin gar keine Russin, stamm’ aus Litauen, echt deutsch. And when we were children, staying at the arch-duke’s, My cousin’s, he took me out on a sled, And I was frightened. He said, Marie, Marie, hold on tight. And down we went. In the mountains, there you feel free. I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter. What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man, 20 You cannot say, or guess, for you know only A heap of broken images, where the sun beats, And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief, And the dry stone no sound of water. Only There is shadow under this red rock, (Come in under the shadow of this red rock), And I will show you something different from either Your shadow at morning striding behind you Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you; I will show you fear in a handful of dust. 30 _Frisch weht der Wind_ _Der Heimat zu._ _Mein irisch Kind,_ _Wo weilest du?_ ‘You gave me hyacinths first a year ago; ‘They called me the hyacinth girl.’ —Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden, Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither Living nor dead, and I knew nothing, 40 Looking into the heart of light, the silence. _Öd’ und leer das Meer._ Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante, Had a bad cold, nevertheless Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe, With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she, Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor, (Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!) Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks, The lady of situations. 50 Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel, And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card, Which is blank, is something he carries on his back, Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find The Hanged Man. Fear death by water. I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring. Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone, Tell her I bring the horoscope myself: One must be so careful these days. Unreal City, 60 Under the brown fog of a winter dawn, A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many, I had not thought death had undone so many. Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled, And each man fixed his eyes before his feet. Flowed up the hill and down King William Street, To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine. There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying: ‘Stetson! You who were with me in the ships at Mylae! 70 That corpse you planted last year in your garden, Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year? Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed? Oh keep the Dog far hence, that’s friend to men, Or with his nails he’ll dig it up again! You! hypocrite lecteur!—mon semblable,—mon frère!’ II. _A Game of Chess_ The Chair she sat in, like a burnished throne, Glowed on the marble, where the glass Held up by standards wrought with fruited vines From which a golden Cupidon peeped out 80 (Another hid his eyes behind his wing) Doubled the flames of sevenbranched candelabra Reflecting light upon the table as The glitter of her jewels rose to meet it, From satin cases poured in rich profusion; In vials of ivory and coloured glass Unstoppered, lurked her strange synthetic perfumes, Unguent, powdered, or liquid—troubled, confused And drowned the sense in odours; stirred by the air That freshened from the window, these ascended 90 In fattening the prolonged candle-flames, Flung their smoke into the laquearia, Stirring the pattern on the coffered ceiling. Huge sea-wood fed with copper Burned green and orange, framed by the coloured stone, In which sad light a carvèd dolphin swam. Above the antique mantel was displayed As though a window gave upon the sylvan scene The change of Philomel, by the barbarous king So rudely forced; yet there the nightingale 100 Filled all the desert with inviolable voice And still she cried, and still the world pursues, ‘Jug Jug’ to dirty ears. And other withered stumps of time Were told upon the walls; staring forms Leaned out, leaning, hushing the room enclosed. Footsteps shuffled on the stair. Under the firelight, under the brush, her hair Spread out in fiery points Glowed into words, then would be savagely still. 110 ‘My nerves are bad to-night. Yes, bad. Stay with me. Speak to me. Why do you never speak. Speak. What are you thinking of? What thinking? What? I never know what you are thinking. Think.’ I think we are in rats’ alley Where the dead men lost their bones. ‘What is that noise?’ The wind under the door. ‘What is that noise now? What is the wind doing?’ Nothing again nothing. 120 ‘Do You know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember Nothing?’ I remember Those are pearls that were his eyes. ‘Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your head?’ But O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag— It’s so elegant So intelligent 130 ‘What shall I do now? What shall I do? I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street With my hair down, so. What shall we do tomorrow? What shall we ever do?’ The hot water at ten. And if it rains, a closed car at four. And we shall play a game of chess, Pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a knock upon the door. When Lil’s husband got demobbed, I said— I didn’t mince my words, I said to her myself, 140 HURRY UP PLEASE IT’S TIME Now Albert’s coming back, make yourself a bit smart. He’ll want to know what you done with that money he gave you To get yourself some teeth. He did, I was there. You have them all out, Lil, and get a nice set, He said, I swear, I can’t bear to look at you. And no more can’t I, and think of poor Albert, He’s been in the army four years, he wants a good time, And if you don’t give it him, there’s others will, I said. Oh is there, she said. Something o’ that, I said. 150 Then I’ll know who to thank, she said, and give me a straight look. HURRY UP PLEASE IT’S TIME If you don’t like it you can get on with it, I said. Others can pick and choose if you can’t. But if Albert makes off, it won’t be for lack of telling. You ought to be ashamed, I said, to look so antique. (And her only thirty-one.) I can’t help it, she said, pulling a long face, It’s them pills I took, to bring it off, she said. (She’s had five already, and nearly died of young George.) 160 The chemist said it would be all right, but I’ve never been the same. You _are_ a proper fool, I said. Well, if Albert won’t leave you alone, there it is, I said, What you get married for if you don’t want children? HURRY UP PLEASE IT’S TIME Well, that Sunday Albert was home, they had a hot gammon, And they asked me in to dinner, to get the beauty of it hot HURRY UP PLEASE IT’S TIME HURRY UP PLEASE IT’S TIME Goonight Bill. Goonight Lou. Goonight May. Goonight. 170 Ta ta. Goonight, Goonight. Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night. III. _The Fire Sermon_ The river’s tent is broken: the last fingers of leaf Clutch and sink into the wet bank. The wind Crosses the brown land, unheard. The nymphs are departed. Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song. The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers, Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends Or other testimony of summer nights. The nymphs are departed. And their friends, the loitering heirs of city directors; 180 Departed, have left no addresses. By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept . . . Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song, Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or long. But at my back in a cold blast I hear The rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear. A rat crept softly through the vegetation Dragging its slimy belly on the bank While I was fishing in the dull canal On a winter evening round behind the gashouse 190 Musing upon the king my brother’s wreck And on the king my father’s death before him. White bodies naked on the low damp ground And bones cast in a little low dry garret, Rattled by the rat’s foot only, year to year. But at my back from time to time I hear The sound of horns and motors, which shall bring Sweeney to Mrs. Porter in the spring. O the moon shone bright on Mrs. Porter And on her daughter 200 They wash their feet in soda water _Et O ces voix d’enfants, chantant dans la coupole!_ Twit twit twit Jug jug jug jug jug jug So rudely forc’d. Tereu Unreal City Under the brown fog of a winter noon Mr. Eugenides, the Smyrna merchant Unshaven, with a pocket full of currants 210 C.i.f. London: documents at sight, Asked me in demotic French To luncheon at the Cannon Street Hotel Followed by a weekend at the Metropole. At the violet hour, when the eyes and back Turn upwards from the desk, when the human engine waits Like a taxi throbbing waiting, I Tiresias, though blind, throbbing between two lives, Old man with wrinkled female breasts, can see At the violet hour, the evening hour that strives 220 Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea, The typist home at teatime, clears her breakfast, lights Her stove, and lays out food in tins. Out of the window perilously spread Her drying combinations touched by the sun’s last rays. On the divan are piled (at night her bed) Stockings, slippers, camisoles, and stays. I Tiresias, old man with wrinkled dugs Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest— I too awaited the expected guest. 230 He, the young man carbuncular, arrives, A small house agent’s clerk, with one bold stare, One of the low on whom assurance sits As a silk hat on a Bradford millionaire. The time is now propitious, as he guesses, The meal is ended, she is bored and tired, Endeavours to engage her in caresses Which still are unreproved, if undesired. Flushed and decided, he assaults at once; Exploring hands encounter no defence; 240 His vanity requires no response, And makes a welcome of indifference. (And I Tiresias have foresuffered all Enacted on this same divan or bed; I who have sat by Thebes below the wall And walked among the lowest of the dead.) Bestows one final patronising kiss, And gropes his way, finding the stairs unlit . . . She turns and looks a moment in the glass, Hardly aware of her departed lover; 250 Her brain allows one half-formed thought to pass: ‘Well now that’s done: and I’m glad it’s over.’ When lovely woman stoops to folly and Paces about her room again, alone, She smoothes her hair with automatic hand, And puts a record on the gramophone. ‘This music crept by me upon the waters’ And along the Strand, up Queen Victoria Street. O City city, I can sometimes hear Beside a public bar in Lower Thames Street, 260 The pleasant whining of a mandoline And a clatter and a chatter from within Where fishermen lounge at noon: where the walls Of Magnus Martyr hold Inexplicable splendour of Ionian white and gold. The river sweats Oil and tar The barges drift With the turning tide Red sails 270 Wide To leeward, swing on the heavy spar. The barges wash Drifting logs Down Greenwich reach Past the Isle of Dogs. Weialala leia Wallala leialala Elizabeth and Leicester Beating oars 280 The stern was formed A gilded shell Red and gold The brisk swell Rippled both shores Southwest wind Carried down stream The peal of bells White towers Weialala leia 290 Wallala leialala ‘Trams and dusty trees. Highbury bore me. Richmond and Kew Undid me. By Richmond I raised my knees Supine on the floor of a narrow canoe.’ ‘My feet are at Moorgate, and my heart Under my feet. After the event He wept. He promised “a new start”. I made no comment. What should I resent?’ ‘On Margate Sands. 300 I can connect Nothing with nothing The broken fingernails of dirty hands. My people humble people who expect Nothing.’ la la To Carthage then I came Burning burning burning burning O Lord Thou pluckest me out O Lord Thou pluckest 310 burning IV. _Death by Water_ Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead, Forgot the cry of gulls, and the sea swell And the profit and loss. A current under sea Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell He passed the stages of his age and youth Entering the whirlpool. Gentile or Jew O you who turn the wheel and look to windward, 320 Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you. V. _What the Thunder said_ After the torchlight red on sweaty faces After the frosty silence in the gardens After the agony in stony places The shouting and the crying Prison and palace and reverberation Of thunder of spring over distant mountains He who was living is now dead We who were living are now dying With a little patience 330 Here is no water but only rock Rock and no water and the sandy road The road winding above among the mountains Which are mountains of rock without water If there were water we should stop and drink Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think Sweat is dry and feet are in the sand If there were only water amongst the rock Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit 340 There is not even silence in the mountains But dry sterile thunder without rain There is not even solitude in the mountains But red sullen faces sneer and snarl From doors of mudcracked houses If there were water and no rock If there were rock And also water And water A spring 350 A pool among the rock If there were the sound of water only Not the cicada And dry grass singing But sound of water over a rock Where the hermit-thrush sings in the pine trees Drip drop drip drop drop drop drop But there is no water Who is the third who walks always beside you? When I count, there are only you and I together 360 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? What is that sound high in the air Murmur of maternal lamentation Who are those hooded hordes swarming Over endless plains, stumbling in cracked earth Ringed by the flat horizon only 370 What is the city over the mountains Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air Falling towers Jerusalem Athens Alexandria Vienna London Unreal A woman drew her long black hair out tight And fiddled whisper music on those strings And bats with baby faces in the violet light Whistled, and beat their wings 380 And crawled head downward down a blackened wall And upside down in air were towers Tolling reminiscent bells, that kept the hours And voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells. In this decayed hole among the mountains In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing Over the tumbled graves, about the chapel There is the empty chapel, only the wind’s home. It has no windows, and the door swings, Dry bones can harm no one. 390 Only a cock stood on the rooftree Co co rico co co rico In a flash of lightning. Then a damp gust Bringing rain Ganga was sunken, and the limp leaves Waited for rain, while the black clouds Gathered far distant, over Himavant. The jungle crouched, humped in silence. Then spoke the thunder DA 400 _Datta_: what have we given? My friend, blood shaking my heart The awful daring of a moment’s surrender Which an age of prudence can never retract By this, and this only, we have existed Which is not to be found in our obituaries Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor In our empty rooms DA 410 _Dayadhvam_: I have heard the key Turn in the door once and turn once only We think of the key, each in his prison Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison Only at nightfall, aethereal rumours Revive for a moment a broken Coriolanus DA _Damyata_: The boat responded Gaily, to the hand expert with sail and oar The sea was calm, your heart would have responded 420 Gaily, when invited, beating obedient To controlling hands I sat upon the shore Fishing, with the arid plain behind me Shall I at least set my lands in order? London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down _Poi s’ascose nel foco che gli affina_ _Quando fiam uti chelidon_—O swallow swallow _Le Prince d’Aquitaine à la tour abolie_ These fragments I have shored against my ruins 430 Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo’s mad againe. Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata. Shantih shantih shantih _Notes on the Waste Land_ NOT only the title, but the plan and a good deal of the incidental symbolism of the poem were suggested by Miss Jessie L. Weston’s book on the Grail legend: _From Ritual to Romance_ (Cambridge). Indeed, so deeply am I indebted, Miss Weston’s book will elucidate the difficulties of the poem much better than my notes can do; and I recommend it (apart from the great interest of the book itself) to any who think such elucidation of the poem worth the trouble. To another work of anthropology I am indebted in general, one which has influenced our generation profoundly; I mean _The Golden Bough_; I have used especially the two volumes _Adonis_, _Attis_, _Osiris_. Anyone who is acquainted with these works will immediately recognise in the poem certain references to vegetation ceremonies. I. THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD Line 20. Cf. Ezekiel II, i. 23. Cf. Ecclesiastes XII, v. 31. V. Tristan und Isolde, I, verses 5-8. 42. Id. III, verse 24. 46. I am not familiar with the exact constitution of the Tarot pack of cards, from which I have obviously departed to suit my own convenience. The Hanged Man, a member of the traditional pack, fits my purpose in two ways: because he is associated in my mind with the Hanged God of Frazer, and because I associate him with the hooded figure in the passage of the disciples to Emmaus in Part V. The Phoenician Sailor and the Merchant appear later; also the ‘crowds of people’, and Death by Water is executed in Part IV. The Man with Three Staves (an authentic member of the Tarot pack) I associate, quite arbitrarily, with the Fisher King himself. 60. Cf. Baudelaire: ‘Fourmillante cité, cité pleine de rêves, Où le spectre en plein jour raccroche le passant.’ 63. Cf. Inferno III, 55-57: ‘si lunga tratta di gente, ch’io non avrei mai creduto che morte tanta n’avesse disfatta.’ 64. Cf. Inferno IV, 25-27: ‘Quivi, secondo che per ascoltare, non avea pianto, ma’ che di sospiri, che l’aura eterna facevan tremare.’ 68. A phenomenon which I have often noticed. 74. Cf. the Dirge in Webster’s _White Devil_. 76. V. Baudelaire, Preface to _Fleurs du Mal_. II. GAME OF CHESS 77. Cf. _Antony and Cleopatra_, II, ii, l. 190. 92. Laquearia. V. _Aeneid_, I, 726: dependant lychni laquearibus aureis incensi, et noctem flammis funalia vincunt. 98. Sylvan scene. V. Milton, _Paradise Lost_, IV, 140. 99. V. Ovid, _Metamorphoses_, VI, Philomela. 100. Cf. Part III, l. 204. 115. Cf. Part III, l. 195. 118. Cf. Webster: ‘Is the wind in that door still?’ 126. Cf. Part I, l. 37, 48. 138. Cf. the game of chess in Middleton’s _Women beware Women_. III. THE FIRE SERMON 176. V. Spenser, _Prothalamion_. 192. Cf. _The Tempest_, I, ii. 196. Cf. Marvell, _To His Coy Mistress_. 197. Cf. Day, _Parliament of Bees_: ‘When of the sudden, listening, you shall hear, A noise of horns and hunting, which shall bring Actaeon to Diana in the spring, Where all shall see her naked skin . . .’ 199. I do not know the origin of the ballad from which these lines are taken: it was reported to me from Sydney, Australia. 202. V. Verlaine, _Parsifal_. 210. The currants were quoted at a price ‘carriage and insurance free to London’; and the Bill of Lading, etc., were to be handed to the buyer upon payment of the sight draft. 218. Tiresias, although a mere spectator and not indeed a ‘character’, is yet the most important personage in the poem, uniting all the rest. Just as the one-eyed merchant, seller of currants, melts into the Phoenician Sailor, and the latter is not wholly distinct from Ferdinand Prince of Naples, so all the women are one woman, and the two sexes meet in Tiresias. What Tiresias _sees_, in fact, is the substance of the poem. The whole passage from Ovid is of great anthropological interest: ‘. . . Cum lunone iocos et maior vestra profecto est Quam, quae contingit maribus’, dixisse, ‘voluptas’. Illa negat; placuit quae sit sententia docti Quaerere Tiresiae: venus huic erat utraque nota. Nam duo magnorum viridi coeuntia silva Corpora serpentum baculi violaverat ictu Deque viro factus, mirabile, femina septem Egerat autumnos; octavo rursus eosdem Vidit et ‘est vestrae si tanta potentia plagae’, Dixit ‘ut auctoris sortem in contraria mutet, Nunc quoque vos feriam!’ percussis anguibus isdem Forma prior rediit genetivaque venit imago. Arbiter hic igitur sumptus de lite iocosa Dicta lovis firmat; gravius Saturnia iusto Nec pro materia fertur doluisse suique Iudicis aeterna damnavit lumina nocte, At pater omnipotens (neque enim licet inrita cuiquam Facta dei fecisse deo) pro lumine adempto Scire futura dedit poenamque levavit honore. 221. This may not appear as exact as Sappho’s lines, but I had in mind the ‘longshore’ or ‘dory’ fisherman, who returns at nightfall. 253. V. Goldsmith, the song in _The Vicar of Wakefield_. 257. V. _The Tempest_, as above. 264. The interior of St Magnus Martyr is to my mind one of the finest among Wren’s interiors. See _The Proposed Demolition of Nineteen City Churches_: (P. S. King & Son, Ltd.). 266. The Song of the (three) Thames-daughters begins here. From line 292 to 306 inclusive they speak in turn. V. _Götterdämmerung_, III, i: the Rhine-daughters. 279. V. Froude, _Elizabeth_, Vol. I, ch. iv, letter of De Quadra to Philip of Spain: ‘In the afternoon we were in a barge, watching the games on the river. (The queen) was alone with Lord Robert and myself on the poop, when they began to talk nonsense, and went so far that Lord Robert at last said, as I was on the spot there was no reason why they should not be married if the queen pleased.’ 293. Cf. _Purgatorio_, V, 133: ‘Ricorditi di me, che son la Pia; Siena mi fe’, disfecemi Maremma.’ 307. V. St Augustine’s _Confessions_: ‘to Carthage then I came, where a cauldron of unholy loves sang all about mine ears’. 308. The complete text of the Buddha’s Fire Sermon (which corresponds in importance to the Sermon on the Mount) from which these words are taken, will be found translated in the late Henry Clarke Warren’s _Buddhism in Translation_ (Harvard Oriental Series). Mr. Warren was one of the great pioneers of Buddhist studies in the Occident. 309. From St Augustine’s _Confessions_ again. The collocation of these two representatives of eastern and western asceticism, as the culmination of this part of the poem, is not an accident. V. WHAT THE THUNDER SAID In the first part of Part V three themes are employed: the journey to Emmaus, the approach to the Chapel Perilous (see Miss Weston’s book) and the present decay of eastern Europe. 357. This is _Turdus aonalaschkae pallasii_, the hermit-thrush which I have heard in Quebec County. Chapman says (_Handbook of birds of Eastern North America_) ‘it is most at home in secluded woodland and thickety retreats. . . . Its notes are not remarkable for variety or volume, but in purity and sweetness of tone and exquisite modulation they are unequalled’. Its ‘water-dripping song’ is justly celebrated. 360. The following lines were stimulated by the account of one of the Antarctic expeditions (I forget which, but I think one of Shackleton’s): it was related that the party of explorers, at the extremity of their strength, had the constant delusion that there was _one more member_ than could actually be counted. 366-76. Cf. Hermann Hesse, _Blick ins Chaos_: ‘Schon ist halb Europa, schon ist zumindest der halbe Osten Europas auf dem Wege zum Chaos, fährt betrunken im heiligen Wahn am Abgrund entlang und singt dazu, singt betrunken und hymnisch wie Dmitri Karamasoff sang. Ueber diese Lieder lacht der Bürger beleidigt, der Heilige und Seher hört sie mit Tränen’. 401. ‘Datta, dayadhvam, damyata’ (Give, sympathise, control). The fable of the meaning of the Thunder is found in the _Brihadaranyaka—Upanishad_, 5, 1. A translation is found in Deussen’s _Sechzig Upanishads des Veda_, p. 489. 407. Cf. Webster, _The White Devil_, V, vi: ‘. . . they’ll remarry Ere the worm pierce your winding-sheet, ere the spider Make a thin curtain for your epitaphs.’ 411. Cf. _Inferno_, XXXIII, 46: ‘ed io sentii chiavar l’uscio di sotto all’orribile torre.’ Also F. H. Bradley, _Appearance and Reality_, p. 346. ‘My external sensations are no less private to myself than are my thoughts or my feelings. In either case my experience falls within my own circle, a circle closed on the outside; and, with all its elements alike, every sphere is opaque to the others which surround it . . . In brief, regarded as an existence which appears in a soul, the whole world for each is peculiar and private to that soul.’ 424. V. Weston: _From Ritual to Romance_; chapter on the Fisher King. 427. V. _Purgatorio_, XXVI, 148. ‘“Ara vos prec per aquella valor que vos guida al som de l’escalina, sovegna vos a temps de ma dolor.” Poi s’ascose nel foco che gli affina.’ 428. V. _Pervigilium Veneris_. Cf. Philomela in Parts II and III. 429. V. Gerard de Nerval, Sonnet _El Desdichado_. 431. V. Kyd’s _Spanish Tragedy_. 433. Shantih. Repeated as here, a formal ending to an Upanishad. ‘The Peace which passeth understanding’ is our equivalent to this word. THE HOLLOW MEN 1925 _Mistah Kurtz—he dead_ _The Hollow Men_ _A penny for the Old Guy_ I We are the hollow men We are the stuffed men Leaning together Headpiece filled with straw. Alas! Our dried voices, when We whisper together Are quiet and meaningless As wind in dry grass Or rats’ feet over broken glass In our dry cellar Shape without form, shade without colour, Paralysed force, gesture without motion; Those who have crossed With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom Remember us—if at all—not as lost Violent souls, but only As the hollow men The stuffed men. II Eyes I dare not meet in dreams In death’s dream kingdom These do not appear: There, the eyes are Sunlight on a broken column There, is a tree swinging And voices are In the wind’s singing More distant and more solemn Than a fading star. Let me be no nearer In death’s dream kingdom Let me also wear Such deliberate disguises Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves In a field Behaving as the wind behaves No nearer— Not that final meeting In the twilight kingdom III This is the dead land This is cactus land Here the stone images Are raised, here they receive The supplication of a dead man’s hand Under the twinkle of a fading star. Is it like this In death’s other kingdom Waking alone At the hour when we are Trembling with tenderness Lips that would kiss Form prayers to broken stone. IV The eyes are not here There are no eyes here In this valley of dying stars In this hollow valley This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms In this last of meeting places We grope together And avoid speech Gathered on this beach of the tumid river Sightless, unless The eyes reappear As the perpetual star Multifoliate rose Of death’s twilight kingdom The hope only Of empty men. V _Here we go round the prickly pear_ _Prickly pear prickly pear_ _Here we go round the prickly pear_ _At five o’clock in the morning._ Between the idea And the reality Between the motion And the act Falls the Shadow _For Thine is the Kingdom_ Between the conception And the creation Between the emotion And the response Falls the Shadow _Life is very long_ Between the desire And the spasm Between the potency And the existence Between the essence And the descent Falls the Shadow _For Thine is the Kingdom_ For Thine is Life is For Thine is the _This is the way the world ends_ _This is the way the world ends_ _This is the way the world ends_ _Not with a bang but a whimper._ ASH-WEDNESDAY 1930 I Because I do not hope to turn again Because I do not hope Because I do not hope to turn Desiring this man’s gift and that man’s scope I no longer strive to strive towards such things (Why should the agèd eagle stretch its wings?) Why should I mourn The vanished power of the usual reign? Because I do not hope to know again The infirm glory of the positive hour Because I do not think Because I know I shall not know The one veritable transitory power Because I cannot drink There, where trees flower, and springs flow, for there is nothing again Because I know that time is always time And place is always and only place And what is actual is actual only for one time And only for one place I rejoice that things are as they are and I renounce the blessèd face And renounce the voice Because I cannot hope to turn again Consequently I rejoice, having to construct something Upon which to rejoice And pray to God to have mercy upon us And I pray that I may forget These matters that with myself I too much discuss Too much explain Because I do not hope to turn again Let these words answer For what is done, not to be done again May the judgement not be too heavy upon us Because these wings are no longer wings to fly But merely vans to beat the air The air which is now thoroughly small and dry Smaller and dryer than the will Teach us to care and not to care Teach us to sit still. Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death Pray for us now and at the hour of our death. II Lady, three white leopards sat under a juniper-tree In the cool of the day, having fed to satiety On my legs my heart my liver and that which had been contained In the hollow round of my skull. And God said Shall these bones live? shall these Bones live? And that which had been contained In the bones (which were already dry) said chirping: Because of the goodness of this Lady And because of her loveliness, and because She honours the Virgin in meditation, We shine with brightness. And I who am here dissembled Proffer my deeds to oblivion, and my love To the posterity of the desert and the fruit of the gourd. It is this which recovers My guts the strings of my eyes and the indigestible portions Which the leopards reject. The Lady is withdrawn In a white gown, to contemplation, in a white gown. Let the whiteness of bones atone to forgetfulness. There is no life in them. As I am forgotten And would be forgotten, so I would forget Thus devoted, concentrated in purpose. And God said Prophesy to the wind, to the wind only for only The wind will listen. And the bones sang chirping With the burden of the grasshopper, saying * * * * * Lady of silences Calm and distressed Torn and most whole Rose of memory Rose of forgetfulness Exhausted and life-giving Worried reposeful The single Rose Is now the Garden Where all loves end Terminate torment Of love unsatisfied The greater torment Of love satisfied End of the endless Journey to no end Conclusion of all that Is inconclusible Speech without word and Word of no speech Grace to the Mother For the Garden Where all love ends. * * * * * Under a juniper-tree the bones sang, scattered and shining We are glad to be scattered, we did little good to each other, Under a tree in the cool of the day, with the blessing of sand, Forgetting themselves and each other, united In the quiet of the desert. This is the land which ye Shall divide by lot. And neither division nor unity Matters. This is the land. We have our inheritance. III At the first turning of the second stair I turned and saw below The same shape twisted on the banister Under the vapour in the fetid air Struggling with the devil of the stairs who wears The deceitful face of hope and of despair. At the second turning of the second stair I left them twisting, turning below; There were no more faces and the stair was dark, Damp, jaggèd, like an old man’s mouth drivelling, beyond repair, Or the toothed gullet of an aged shark. At the first turning of the third stair Was a slotted window bellied like the fig’s fruit And beyond the hawthorn blossom and a pasture scene The broadbacked figure drest in blue and green Enchanted the maytime with an antique flute. Blown hair is sweet, brown hair over the mouth blown, Lilac and brown hair; Distraction, music of the flute, stops and steps of the mind over the third stair, Fading, fading; strength beyond hope and despair Climbing the third stair. Lord, I am not worthy Lord, I am not worthy but speak the word only. IV Who walked between the violet and the violet Who walked between The various ranks of varied green Going in white and blue, in Mary’s colour, Talking of trivial things In ignorance and in knowledge of eternal dolour Who moved among the others as they walked, Who then made strong the fountains and made fresh the springs Made cool the dry rock and made firm the sand In blue of larkspur, blue of Mary’s colour, Sovegna vos Here are the years that walk between, bearing Away the fiddles and the flutes, restoring One who moves in the time between sleep and waking, wearing White light folded, sheathed about her, folded. The new years walk, restoring Through a bright cloud of tears, the years, restoring With a new verse the ancient rhyme. Redeem The time. Redeem The unread vision in the higher dream While jewelled unicorns draw by the gilded hearse. The silent sister veiled in white and blue Between the yews, behind the garden god, Whose flute is breathless, bent her head and signed but spoke no word But the fountain sprang up and the bird sang down Redeem the time, redeem the dream The token of the word unheard, unspoken Till the wind shake a thousand whispers from the yew And after this our exile V If the lost word is lost, if the spent word is spent If the unheard, unspoken Word is unspoken, unheard; Still is the unspoken word, the Word unheard, The Word without a word, the Word within The world and for the world; And the light shone in darkness and Against the World the unstilled world still whirled About the centre of the silent Word. O my people, what have I done unto thee. Where shall the word be found, where will the word Resound? Not here, there is not enough silence Not on the sea or on the islands, not On the mainland, in the desert or the rain land, For those who walk in darkness Both in the day time and in the night time The right time and the right place are not here No place of grace for those who avoid the face No time to rejoice for those who walk among noise and deny the voice Will the veiled sister pray for Those who walk in darkness, who chose thee and oppose thee, Those who are torn on the horn between season and season, time and time, between Hour and hour, word and word, power and power, those who wait In darkness? Will the veiled sister pray For children at the gate Who will not go away and cannot pray: Pray for those who chose and oppose O my people, what have I done unto thee. Will the veiled sister between the slender Yew trees pray for those who offend her And are terrified and cannot surrender And affirm before the world and deny between the rocks In the last desert between the last blue rocks The desert in the garden the garden in the desert Of drouth, spitting from the mouth the withered apple-seed. O my people. VI Although I do not hope to turn again Although I do not hope Although I do not hope to turn Wavering between the profit and the loss In this brief transit where the dreams cross The dreamcrossed twilight between birth and dying (Bless me father) though I do not wish to wish these things From the wide window towards the granite shore The white sails still fly seaward, seaward flying Unbroken wings And the lost heart stiffens and rejoices In the lost lilac and the lost sea voices And the weak spirit quickens to rebel For the bent golden-rod and the lost sea smell Quickens to recover The cry of quail and the whirling plover And the blind eye creates The empty forms between the ivory gates And smell renews the salt savour of the sandy earth This is the time of tension between dying and birth The place of solitude where three dreams cross Between blue rocks But when the voices shaken from the yew-tree drift away Let the other yew be shaken and reply. Blessèd sister, holy mother, spirit of the fountain, spirit of the garden, Suffer us not to mock ourselves with falsehood Teach us to care and not to care Teach us to sit still Even among these rocks, Our peace in His will And even among these rocks Sister, mother And spirit of the river, spirit of the sea, Suffer me not to be separated And let my cry come unto Thee. ARIEL POEMS _Journey of the Magi_ ‘A cold coming we had of it, Just the worst time of the year For a journey, and such a long journey: The ways deep and the weather sharp, The very dead of winter.’ And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory, Lying down in the melting snow. There were times we regretted The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces, And the silken girls bringing sherbet. Then the camel men cursing and grumbling And running away, and wanting their liquor and women, And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters, And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly And the villages dirty and charging high prices: A hard time we had of it. At the end we preferred to travel all night, Sleeping in snatches, With the voices singing in our ears, saying That this was all folly. Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley, Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation; With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness, And three trees on the low sky, And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow. Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel, Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver, And feet kicking the empty wine-skins. But there was no information, and so we continued And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory. All this was a long time ago, I remember, And I would do it again, but set down This set down This: were we led all that way for Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly, We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death, But had thought they were different; this Birth was Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death. We returned to our places, these Kingdoms, But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation, With an alien people clutching their gods. I should be glad of another death. _A Song for Simeon_ Lord, the Roman hyacinths are blooming in bowls and The winter sun creeps by the snow hills; The stubborn season has made stand. My life is light, waiting for the death wind, Like a feather on the back of my hand. Dust in sunlight and memory in corners Wait for the wind that chills towards the dead land. Grant us thy peace. I have walked many years in this city, Kept faith and fast, provided for the poor, Have given and taken honour and ease. There went never any rejected from my door. Who shall remember my house, where shall live my children’s children When the time of sorrow is come? They will take to the goat’s path, and the fox’s home, Fleeing from the foreign faces and the foreign swords. Before the time of cords and scourges and lamentation Grant us thy peace. Before the stations of the mountain of desolation, Before the certain hour of maternal sorrow, Now at this birth season of decease, Let the Infant, the still unspeaking and unspoken Word, Grant Israel’s consolation To one who has eighty years and no tomorrow. According to thy word. They shall praise Thee and suffer in every generation With glory and derision, Light upon light, mounting the saints’ stair. Not for me the martyrdom, the ecstasy of thought and prayer, Not for me the ultimate vision. Grant me thy peace. (And a sword shall pierce thy heart, Thine also.) I am tired with my own life and the lives of those after me, I am dying in my own death and the deaths of those after me. Let thy servant depart, Having seen thy salvation. _Animula_ ‘Issues from the hand of God, the simple soul’ To a flat world of changing lights and noise, To light, dark, dry or damp, chilly or warm; Moving between the legs of tables and of chairs, Rising or falling, grasping at kisses and toys, Advancing boldly, sudden to take alarm, Retreating to the corner of arm and knee, Eager to be reassured, taking pleasure In the fragrant brilliance of the Christmas tree, Pleasure in the wind, the sunlight and the sea; Studies the sunlit pattern on the floor And running stags around a silver tray; Confounds the actual and the fanciful, Content with playing-cards and kings and queens, What the fairies do and what the servants say. The heavy burden of the growing soul Perplexes and offends more, day by day; Week by week, offends and perplexes more With the imperatives of ‘is and seems’ And may and may not, desire and control. The pain of living and the drug of dreams Curl up the small soul in the window seat Behind the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_. Issues from the hand of time the simple soul Irresolute and selfish, misshapen, lame, Unable to fare forward or retreat, Fearing the warm reality, the offered good, Denying the importunity of the blood, Shadow of its own shadows, spectre in its own gloom, Leaving disordered papers in a dusty room; Living first in the silence after the viaticum. Pray for Guiterriez, avid of speed and power, For Boudin, blown to pieces, For this one who made a great fortune, And that one who went his own way. Pray for Floret, by the boarhound slain between the yew trees, Pray for us now and at the hour of our birth. _Marina_ _Quis hic locus, quae_ _regio, quae mundi plaga?_ What seas what shores what grey rocks and what islands What water lapping the bow And scent of pine and the woodthrush singing through the fog What images return O my daughter. Those who sharpen the tooth of the dog, meaning Death Those who glitter with the glory of the hummingbird, meaning Death Those who sit in the stye of contentment, meaning Death Those who suffer the ecstasy of the animals, meaning Death Are become unsubstantial, reduced by a wind, A breath of pine, and the woodsong fog By this grace dissolved in place What is this face, less clear and clearer The pulse in the arm, less strong and stronger— Given or lent? more distant than stars and nearer than the eye Whispers and small laughter between leaves and hurrying feet Under sleep, where all the waters meet. Bowsprit cracked with ice and paint cracked with heat. I made this, I have forgotten And remember. The rigging weak and the canvas rotten Between one June and another September. Made this unknowing, half conscious, unknown, my own. The garboard strake leaks, the seams need caulking. This form, this face, this life Living to live in a world of time beyond me; let me Resign my life for this life, my speech for that unspoken, The awakened, lips parted, the hope, the new ships. What seas what shores what granite islands towards my timbers And woodthrush calling through the fog My daughter. CHORUSES FROM ‘THE ROCK’ I The Eagle soars in the summit of Heaven, The Hunter with his dogs pursues his circuit. O perpetual revolution of configured stars, O perpetual recurrence of determined seasons, O world of spring and autumn, birth and dying! The endless cycle of idea and action, Endless invention, endless experiment, Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness; Knowledge of speech, but not of silence; Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word. All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance, All our ignorance brings us nearer to death, But nearness to death no nearer to GOD. Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? The cycles of Heaven in twenty centuries Bring us farther from GOD and nearer to the Dust. I journeyed to London, to the timekept City, Where the River flows, with foreign flotations. There I was told: we have too many churches, And too few chop-houses. There I was told: Let the vicars retire. Men do not need the Church In the place where they work, but where they spend their Sundays. In the City, we need no bells: Let them waken the suburbs. I journeyed to the suburbs, and there I was told: We toil for six days, on the seventh we must motor To Hindhead, or Maidenhead. If the weather is foul we stay at home and read the papers. In industrial districts, there I was told Of economic laws. In the pleasant countryside, there it seemed That the country now is only fit for picnics. And the Church does not seem to be wanted In country or in suburb; and in the town Only for important weddings. C H O R U S L E A D E R: Silence! and preserve respectful distance. For I perceive approaching The Rock. Who will perhaps answer our doubtings. The Rock. The Watcher. The Stranger. He who has seen what has happened And who sees what is to happen. The Witness. The Critic. The Stranger. The God-shaken, in whom is the truth inborn. _Enter the_ R O C K, _led by a_ B O Y: T H E R O C K: The lot of man is ceaseless labour, Or ceaseless idleness, which is still harder, Or irregular labour, which is not pleasant. I have trodden the winepress alone, and I know That it is hard to be really useful, resigning The things that men count for happiness, seeking The good deeds that lead to obscurity, accepting With equal face those that bring ignominy, The applause of all or the love of none. All men are ready to invest their money But most expect dividends. I say to you: _Make perfect your will._ I say: take no thought of the harvest, But only of proper sowing. The world turns and the world changes, But one thing does not change. In all of my years, one thing does not change. However you disguise it, this thing does not change: The perpetual struggle of Good and Evil. Forgetful, you neglect your shrines and churches; The men you are in these times deride What has been done of good, you find explanations To satisfy the rational and enlightened mind. Second, you neglect and belittle the desert. The desert is not remote in southern tropics, The desert is not only around the corner, The desert is squeezed in the tube-train next to you, The desert is in the heart of your brother. The good man is the builder, if he build what is good. I will show you the things that are now being done, And some of the things that were long ago done, That you may take heart. Make perfect your will. Let me show you the work of the humble. Listen. _The lights fade; in the semi-darkness the voices of_ W O R K M E N _are heard chanting_. _In the vacant places_ _We will build with new bricks_ _There are hands and machines_ _And clay for new brick_ _And lime for new mortar_ _Where the bricks are fallen_ _We will build with new stone_ _Where the beams are rotten_ _We will build with new timbers_ _Where the word is unspoken_ _We will build with new speech_ _There is work together_ _A Church for all_ _And a job for each_ _Every man to his work._ _Now a group of_ W O R K M E N _is silhouetted against the dim sky. From farther away, they are answered by voices of the_ U N E M P L O Y E D. _No man has hired us_ _With pocketed hands_ _And lowered faces_ _We stand about in open places_ _And shiver in unlit rooms._ _Only the wind moves_ _Over empty fields, untilled_ _Where the plough rests, at an angle_ _To the furrow. In this land_ _There shall be one cigarette to two men,_ _To two women one half pint of bitter_ _Ale. In this land_ _No man has hired us._ _Our life is unwelcome, our death_ _Unmentioned in ‘The Times’._ _Chant of_ W O R K M E N _again_. _The river flows, the seasons turn,_ _The sparrow and starling have no time to waste._ _If men do not build_ _How shall they live?_ _When the field is tilled_ _And the wheat is bread_ _They shall not die in a shortened bed_ _And a narrow sheet. In this street_ _There is no beginning, no movement, no peace and no end_ _But noise without speech, food without taste._ _Without delay, without haste._ _We would build the beginning and the end of this street._ _We build the meaning:_ _A Church for all_ _And a job for each_ _Each man to his work._ II Thus your fathers were made Fellow citizens of the saints, of the household of G O D, being built upon the foundation Of apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself the chief cornerstone, But you, have you built well, that you now sit helpless in a ruined house? Where many are born to idleness, to frittered lives and squalid deaths, embittered scorn in honeyless hives, And those who would build and restore turn out the palms of their hands, or look in vain towards foreign lands for alms to be more or the urn to be filled. Your building not fitly framed together, you sit ashamed and wonder whether and how you may be builded together for a habitation of G O D in the Spirit, the Spirit which moved on the face of the waters like a lantern set on the back of a tortoise. And some say: ‘How can we love our neighbour? For love must be made real in act, as desire unites with desired; we have only our labour to give and our labour is not required. We wait on corners, with nothing to bring but the songs we can sing which nobody wants to hear sung; Waiting to be flung in the end, on a heap less useful than dung.’ You, have you built well, have you forgotten the cornerstone? Talking of right relations of men, but not of relations of men to G O D. ‘Our citizenship is in Heaven’; yes, but that is the model and type for your citizenship upon earth. When your fathers fixed the place of G O D, And settled all the inconvenient saints, Apostles, martyrs, in a kind of Whipsnade, Then they could set about imperial expansion Accompanied by industrial development. Exporting iron, coal and cotton goods And intellectual enlightenment And everything, including capital And several versions of the Word of G O D: The British race assured of a mission Performed it, but left much at home unsure. Of all that was done in the past, you eat the fruit, either rotten or ripe. And the Church must be forever building, and always decaying, and always being restored. For every ill deed in the past we suffer the consequence: For sloth, for avarice, gluttony, neglect of the Word of G O D, For pride, for lechery, treachery, for every act of sin. And of all that was done that was good, you have the inheritance. For good and ill deeds belong to a man alone, when he stands alone on the other side of death, But here upon earth you have the reward of the good and ill that was done by those who have gone before you. And all that is ill you may repair if you walk together in humble repentance, expiating the sins of your fathers; And all that was good you must fight to keep with hearts as devoted as those of your fathers who fought to gain it. The Church must be forever building, for it is forever decaying within and attacked from without; For this is the law of life; and you must remember that while there is time of prosperity The people will neglect the Temple, and in time of adversity they will decry it. What life have you if you have not life together? There is no life that is not in community, And no community not lived in praise of G O D. Even the anchorite who meditates alone, For whom the days and nights repeat the praise of G O D, Prays for the Church, the Body of Christ incarnate. And now you live dispersed on ribbon roads, And no man knows or cares who is his neighbour Unless his neighbour makes too much disturbance, But all dash to and fro in motor cars, Familiar with the roads and settled nowhere. Nor does the family even move about together, But every son would have his motor cycle, And daughters ride away on casual pillions. Much to cast down, much to build, much to restore; Let the work not delay, time and the arm not waste; Let the clay be dug from the pit, let the saw cut the stone, Let the fire not be quenched in the forge. III The Word of the L O R D came unto me, saying: O miserable cities of designing men, O wretched generation of enlightened men, Betrayed in the mazes of your ingenuities, Sold by the proceeds of your proper inventions: I have given you hands which you turn from worship, I have given you speech, for endless palaver, I have given you my Law, and you set up commissions, I have given you lips, to express friendly sentiments, I have given you hearts, for reciprocal distrust. I have given you power of choice, and you only alternate Between futile speculation and unconsidered action. Many are engaged in writing books and printing them, Many desire to see their names in print, Many read nothing but the race reports. Much is your reading, but not the Word of G O D, Much is your building, but not the House of G O D. Will you build me a house of plaster, with corrugated roofing, To be filled with a litter of Sunday newspapers? 1 S T M A L E V O I C E: A Cry from the East: What shall be done to the shore of smoky ships? Will you leave my people forgetful and forgotten To idleness, labour, and delirious stupor? There shall be left the broken chimney, The peeled hull, a pile of rusty iron, In a street of scattered brick where the goat climbs, Where My Word is unspoken. 2 N D M A L E V O I C E: A Cry from the North, from the West and from the South Whence thousands travel daily to the timekept City; Where My Word is unspoken, In the land of lobelias and tennis flannels The rabbit shall burrow and the thorn revisit, The nettle shall flourish on the gravel court, And the wind shall say: ‘Here were decent godless people: Their only monument the asphalt road And a thousand lost golf balls’. C H O R U S: We build in vain unless the L O R D build with us. Can you keep the City that the L O R D keeps not with you? A thousand policemen directing the traffic Cannot tell you why you come or where you go. A colony of cavies or a horde of active marmots Build better than they that build without the L O R D. Shall we lift up our feet among perpetual ruins? I have loved the beauty of Thy House, the peace of Thy sanctuary, I have swept the floors and garnished the altars. Where there is no temple there shall be no homes, Though you have shelters and institutions, Precarious lodgings while the rent is paid, Subsiding basements where the rat breeds Or sanitary dwellings with numbered doors Or a house a little better than your neighbour’s; When the Stranger says: ‘What is the meaning of this city? Do you huddle close together because you love each other?’ What will you answer? ‘We all dwell together To make money from each other’? or ‘This is a community’? And the Stranger will depart and return to the desert. O my soul, be prepared for the coming of the Stranger, Be prepared for him who knows how to ask questions. O weariness of men who turn from GOD To the grandeur of your mind and the glory of your action, To arts and inventions and daring enterprises, To schemes of human greatness thoroughly discredited, Binding the earth and the water to your service, Exploiting the seas and developing the mountains, Dividing the stars into common and preferred, Engaged in devising the perfect refrigerator, Engaged in working out a rational morality, Engaged in printing as many books as possible, Plotting of happiness and flinging empty bottles, Turning from your vacancy to fevered enthusiasm For nation or race or what you call humanity; Though you forget the way to the Temple, There is one who remembers the way to your door: Life you may evade, but Death you shall not. You shall not deny the Stranger. VII In the beginning G O D created the world. Waste and void. Waste and void. And darkness was upon the face of the deep. And when there were men, in their various ways, they struggled in torment towards G O D Blindly and vainly, for man is a vain thing, and man without G O D is a seed upon the wind: driven this way and that, and finding no place of lodgement and germination. They followed the light and the shadow, and the light led them forward to light and the shadow led them to darkness, Worshipping snakes or trees, worshipping devils rather than nothing: crying for life beyond life, for ecstasy not of the flesh. Waste and void. Waste and void. And darkness on the face of the deep. And the Spirit moved upon the face of the water. And men who turned towards the light and were known of the light Invented the Higher Religions; and the Higher Religions were good And led men from light to light, to knowledge of Good and Evil. But their light was ever surrounded and shot with darkness As the air of temperate seas is pierced by the still dead breath of the Arctic Current; And they came to an end, a dead end stirred with a flicker of life, And they came to the withered ancient look of a child that has died of starvation. Prayer wheels, worship of the dead, denial of this world, affirmation of rites with forgotten meanings In the restless wind-whopped sand, or the hills where the wind will not let the snow rest. Waste and void. Waste and void. And darkness on the face of the deep. Then came, at a predetermined moment, a moment in time and of time, A moment not out of time, but in time, in what we call history: transecting, bisecting the world of time, a moment in time but not like a moment of time, A moment in time but time was made through that moment: for without the meaning there is no time, and that moment of time gave the meaning. Then it seemed as if men must proceed from light to light, in the light of the Word, Through the Passion and Sacrifice saved in spite of their negative being; Bestial as always before, carnal, self-seeking as always before, selfish and purblind as ever before. Yet always struggling, always reaffirming, always resuming their march on the way that was lit by the light; Often halting, loitering, straying, delaying, returning, yet following no other way. But it seems that something has happened that has never happened before: though we know not just when, or why, or how, or where. Men have left G O D not for other gods, they say, but for no god; and this has never happened before That men both deny gods and worship gods, professing first Reason, And then Money, and Power, and what they call Life, or Race, or Dialectic. The Church disowned, the tower overthrown, the bells upturned, what have we to do But stand with empty hands and palms turned upwards In an age which advances progressively backwards? V O I C E O F T H E U N E M P L O Y E D (_afar off_): _In this land_ _There shall be one cigarette to two men,_ _To two women one half pint of bitter_ _Ale . . ._ C H O R U S: What does the world say, does the whole world stray in high-powered cars on a by-pass way? V O I C E O F T H E U N E M P L O Y E D (_more faintly_): _In this land_ _No man has hired us . . ._ C H O R U S: Waste and void. Waste and void. And darkness on the face of the deep. Has the Church failed mankind, or has mankind failed the Church? When the Church is no longer regarded, not even opposed, and men have forgotten All gods except Usury, Lust and Power. IX Son of Man, behold with thine eyes, and hear with thine ears And set thine heart upon all that I show thee. Who is this that has said: the House of G O D is a House of Sorrow; We must walk in black and go sadly, with longdrawn faces, We must go between empty walls, quavering lowly, whispering faintly, Among a few flickering scattered lights? They would put upon G O D their own sorrow, the grief they should feel For their sins and faults as they go about their daily occasions. Yet they walk in the street proudnecked, like thoroughbreds ready for races, Adorning themselves, and busy in the market, the forum, And all other secular meetings. Thinking good of themselves, ready for any festivity, Doing themselves very well. Let us mourn in a private chamber, learning the way of penitence, And then let us learn the joyful communion of saints. The soul of Man must quicken to creation. Out of the formless stone, when the artist united himself with stone, Spring always new forms of life, from the soul of man that is joined to the soul of stone; Out of the meaningless practical shapes of all that is living or lifeless Joined with the artist’s eye, new life, new form, new colour. Out of the sea of sound the life of music, Out of the slimy mud of words, out of the sleet and hail of verbal imprecisions, Approximate thoughts and feelings, words that have taken the place of thoughts and feelings, There spring the perfect order of speech, and the beauty of incantation. L O R D, shall we not bring these gifts to Your service? Shall we not bring to Your service all our powers For life, for dignity, grace and order, And intellectual pleasures of the senses? The L O R D who created must wish us to create And employ our creation again in His service Which is already His service in creating. For Man is joined spirit and body, And therefore must serve as spirit and body. Visible and invisible, two worlds meet in Man; Visible and invisible must meet in His Temple; You must not deny the body. Now you shall see the Temple completed: After much striving, after many obstacles; For the work of creation is never without travail; The formed stone, the visible crucifix, The dressed altar, the lifting light, Light Light The visible reminder of Invisible Light. X You have seen the house built, you have seen it adorned By one who came in the night, it is now dedicated to G O D. It is now a visible church, one more light set on a hill In a world confused and dark and disturbed by portents of fear. And what shall we say of the future? Is one church all we can build? Or shall the Visible Church go on to conquer the World? The great snake lies ever half awake, at the bottom of the pit of the world, curled In folds of himself until he awakens in hunger and moving his head to right and to left prepares for his hour to devour. But the Mystery of Iniquity is a pit too deep for mortal eyes to plumb. Come Ye out from among those who prize the serpent’s golden eyes, The worshippers, self-given sacrifice of the snake. Take Your way and be ye separate. Be not too curious of Good and Evil; Seek not to count the future waves of Time; But be ye satisfied that you have light Enough to take your step and find your foothold. O Light Invisible, we praise Thee! Too bright for mortal vision. O Greater Light, we praise Thee for the less; The eastern light our spires touch at morning, The light that slants upon our western doors at evening, The twilight over stagnant pools at batflight, Moon light and star light, owl and moth light, Glow-worm glowlight on a grassblade. O Light Invisible, we worship Thee! We thank Thee for the lights that we have kindled, The light of altar and of sanctuary; Small lights of those who meditate at midnight And lights directed through the coloured panes of windows And light reflected from the polished stone, The gilded carven wood, the coloured fresco. Our gaze is submarine, our eyes look upward And see the light that fractures through unquiet water. We see the light but see not whence it comes. O Light Invisible, we glorify Thee! In our rhythm of earthly life we tire of light. We are glad when the day ends, when the play ends; and ecstasy is too much pain. We are children quickly tired: children who are up in the night and fall asleep as the rocket is fired; and the day is long for work or play. We tire of distraction or concentration, we sleep and are glad to sleep, Controlled by the rhythm of blood and the day and the night and the seasons. And we must extinguish the candle, put out the light and relight it; Forever must quench, forever relight the flame. Therefore we thank Thee for our little light, that is dappled with shadow. We thank Thee who hast moved us to building, to finding, to forming at the ends of our fingers and beams of our eyes. And when we have built an altar to the Invisible Light, we may set thereon the little lights for which our bodily vision is made. And we thank Thee that darkness reminds us of light. 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S E L E C T I O N S F R O M I N D I V I D U A L P O E T S W O R D S W O R T H ( D 2 )—Edited by W. E. Williams R O B E R T B U R N S ( D 3 )—Edited by H. W. Meikle and W. Beattie T . S . E L I O T ( D 4 )—Selected by himself D . H . L A W R E N C E ( D 1 1 )—Edited by W. E. Williams J O H N D O N N E ( D 1 3 )—Edited by John Hayward A L E X A N D E R P O P E ( D 1 4 )—Edited by Douglas Grant C . D A Y L E W I S ( D 1 7 )—Selected by himself A selection from the poetry of _Edith Sitwell_ will soon be available. _One shilling and sixpence each_ ^{★} _Two shillings and sixpence_ A B O U T T H I S B O O K Readers who are familiar only with the ‘traditional’ poets must revise their attitude to poetry if they are to get on terms with T. S. Eliot, the major poet of this modern age. They may be shaken, for example, by his manner of interpolating sardonic or colloquial passages into a ‘serious’ poem— ‘I grow old . . . I grow old I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.’ And they may feel that by calling a poem, ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’, Mr. Eliot is being derisive or satirical. It is quite certain that such readers will need time and patience to discover the clues of his unconventional conception of poetic aim and method. Some of the poems in this collection, now presented for the first time in a popular edition, reveal these clues more quickly than others: ‘Journey of the Magi’, for instance, or ‘Rhapsody on a Windy Night’, and once the reader becomes familiar with Mr. Eliot’s ‘poetic shorthand’ he will the more easily follow such major poems as ‘The Waste Land’. There are no poetic ‘subjects’ in this book, no conventional nightingales and daffodils, and there is no acceptance, either, of the traditional rules of metre and rhyme. As one discerning critic has said: ‘We have here, in short, poetry that expresses freely a modern sensibility, the ways of feeling and the modes of experience of one fully alive in his own age’. The main poem in this collection is ‘The Waste Land’ (1922) to which Mr. Eliot has himself supplied some revealing footnotes which help the reader to cope with the associations and allusions in which the poem is so rich. His theme here, as in most of his other poems, is disillusion with our contemporary civilization, which he contrasts in several of its aspects with the beliefs and practices of other and earlier races. It is a difficult poem to follow and even Mr Eliot’s own sign-posts are sometimes cryptic. But of ‘The Waste Land’, as of all the other poems in this book, it can be said that they incite the reader to pursue their meaning. The process is not a rapid one, and many people will ‘feel’ the poems long before they understand them. Mr. Eliot himself has said: ‘Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood’, and in the rhythms, images and epithets of these poems there is an unmistakable and incandescent power of communication. T . S . E L I O T Thomas Stearns Eliot, O.M., poet and critic, was born of New England stock in St Louis, Missouri, U.S.A., in September, 1888, and was educated at Harvard, after which he spent a year at the Sorbonne, Paris, and a year at Merton College, Oxford. He settled in England in 1915. After eight years in Lloyds Bank in the City of London—during which period he began his editorship of _The Criterion_, a literary quarterly—he joined the firm of publishers which later became Faber and Faber. His first volume of verse, _Prufrock and Other Observations_, was published in London in 1917. His first critical essays and reviews were collected in 1920 in a volume entitled _The Sacred Wood_. _The Waste Land_, his most influential poem, followed in 1922. A collected edition of his essays was published in 1932, and a collected edition of his poems in 1936. Another volume of verse, _Four Quartets_, was published in 1944. He has also written three plays in verse, _Murder in the Cathedral_ (1935), _The Family Reunion_ (1939), and _The Cocktail Party_ (1950). His verse and prose have been translated into many foreign languages (see _Bibliography_ by D. Gallup, Yale, 1947), and his influence on contemporary English literature has been widespread and profound. His literary honours include: The Clark Lectureship, Cambridge University, 1926; The Charles Eliot Norton Visiting Professorship, Harvard University, 1932-33, Presidency of the Classical Association in 1943 and of the Virgil Society in 1944; honorary fellowships of Merton College, Oxford, and Magdalene College, Cambridge; and honorary doctorates of twelve English, European and American Universities. In 1948 he was awarded the O.M., and in the same year the Nobel Prize for Literature. TRANSCRIBER NOTES Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where multiple spellings occur, majority use has been employed. Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer errors occur. [The end of _Selected Poems_ by T. S. Eliot]