1. I. THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD
1
APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
2
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
3
Memory and desire, stirring
4
Dull roots with spring rain.
5
Winter kept us warm, covering
6
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
7
A little life with dried tubers.
8
Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
9
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
10
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,
11
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
12
Bin gar keine Russin, stamm’ aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
13
And when we were children, staying at the archduke’s,
14
My cousin’s, he took me out on a sled,
15
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
16
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
17
In the mountains, there you feel free.
18
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.
19
What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
20
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
21
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
22
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
23
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
24
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
25
There is shadow under this red rock,
26
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
27
And I will show you something different from either
28
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
29
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
30
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
35
“You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;
36
They called me the hyacinth girl.”
37
—Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,
38
Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
39
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
40
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,
41
Looking into the heart of light, the silence.
42
Öd’ und leer das Meer.
43
Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante,
44
Had a bad cold, nevertheless
45
Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe,
46
With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she,
47
Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor,
48
(Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)
49
Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks,
50
The lady of situations.
51
Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel,
52
And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card,
53
Which is blank, is something he carries on his back,
54
Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find
55
The Hanged Man. Fear death by water.
56
I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring.
57
Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone,
58
Tell her I bring the horoscope myself:
59
One must be so careful these days.
61
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
62
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
63
I had not thought death had undone so many.
64
Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,
65
And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.
66
Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,
67
To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours
68
With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.
69
There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying “Stetson!
70
You who were with me in the ships at Mylae!
71
That corpse you planted last year in your garden,
72
Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?
73
Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?
74
Oh keep the Dog far hence, that’s friend to men,
75
Or with his nails he’ll dig it up again!
76
You!hypocrite lecteur!—mon semblable,—mon frère!”
1
The Chair she sat in, like a burnished throne,
2
Glowed on the marble, where the glass
3
Held up by standards wrought with fruited vines
4
From which a golden Cupidon peeped out
5
(Another hid his eyes behind his wing)
6
Doubled the flames of sevenbranched candelabra
7
Reflecting light upon the table as
8
The glitter of her jewels rose to meet it,
9
From satin cases poured in rich profusion;
10
In vials of ivory and coloured glass
11
Unstoppered, lurked her strange synthetic perfumes,
12
Unguent, powdered, or liquid—troubled, confused
13
And drowned the sense in odours; stirred by the air
14
That freshened from the window, these ascended
15
In fattening the prolonged candle-flames,
16
Flung their smoke into the laquearia,
17
Stirring the pattern on the coffered ceiling.
18
Huge sea-wood fed with copper
19
Burned green and orange, framed by the coloured stone,
20
In which sad light a carvèd dolphin swam.
21
Above the antique mantel was displayed
22
As though a window gave upon the sylvan scene
23
The change of Philomel, by the barbarous king
24
So rudely forced; yet there the nightingale
25
Filled all the desert with inviolable voice
26
And still she cried, and still the world pursues,
27
“Jug Jug” to dirty ears.
28
And other withered stumps of time
29
Were told upon the walls; staring forms
30
Leaned out, leaning, hushing the room enclosed.
31
Footsteps shuffled on the stair,
32
Under the firelight, under the brush, her hair
33
Spread out in fiery points
34
Glowed into words, then would be savagely still.
35
“My nerves are bad to-night. Yes, bad. Stay with me.
36
Speak to me. Why do you never speak? Speak.
37
What are you thinking of? What thinking? What?
38
I never know what you are thinking. Think.”
39
I think we are in rats’ alley
40
Where the dead men lost their bones.
43
The wind under the door.
44
“What is that noise now? What is the wind doing?”
45
Nothing again nothing.
47
You know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember
50
Those are pearls that were his eyes.
51
“Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your head?”
53
O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag—
56
“What shall I do now? What shall I do?
57
I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street
58
With my hair down, so. What shall we do to-morrow?
59
What shall we ever do?”
61
And if it rains, a closed car at four.
62
And we shall play a game of chess,
63
Pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a knock upon the door.
64
When Lil’s husband got demobbed, I said,
65
I didn’t mince my words, I said to her myself,
66
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
67
Now Albert’s coming back, make yourself a bit smart.
68
He’ll want to know what you done with that money he gave you
69
To get yourself some teeth. He did, I was there.
70
You have them all out, Lil, and get a nice set,
71
He said, I swear, I can’t bear to look at you.
72
And no more can’t I, I said, and think of poor Albert,
73
He’s been in the army four years, he wants a good time,
74
And if you don’t give it him, there’s others will, I said.
75
Oh is there, she said. Something o’ that, I said.
76
Then I’ll know who to thank, she said, and give me a straight look.
77
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
78
If you don’t like it you can get on with it, I said,
79
Others can pick and choose if you can’t.
80
But if Albert makes off, it won’t be for lack of telling.
81
You ought to be ashamed, I said, to look so antique.
82
(And her only thirty-one.)
83
I can’t help it, she said, pulling a long face,
84
It’s them pills I took, to bring it off, she said.
85
(She’s had five already, and nearly died of young George.)
86
The chemist said it would be alright, but I’ve never been the same.
87
You are a proper fool, I said.
88
Well, if Albert won’t leave you alone, there it is, I said,
89
What you get married for if you don’t want children?
90
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
91
Well, that Sunday Albert was home, they had a hot gammon,
92
And they asked me in to dinner, to get the beauty of it hot—
93
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
94
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
95
Goonight Bill. Goonight Lou. Goonight May. Goonight.
96
Ta ta. Goonight. Goonight.
97
Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night.
1
The river’s tent is broken: the last fingers of leaf
2
Clutch and sink into the wet bank. The wind
3
Crosses the brown land, unheard. The nymphs are departed.
4
Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song.
5
The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers,
6
Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends
7
Or other testimony of summer nights. The nymphs are departed.
8
And their friends, the loitering heirs of city directors;
9
Departed, have left no addresses.
10
By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept…
11
Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song,
12
Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or long.
13
But at my back in a cold blast I hear
14
The rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear.
16
A rat crept softly through the vegetation
17
Dragging its slimy belly on the bank
18
While I was fishing in the dull canal
19
On a winter evening round behind the gashouse.
20
Musing upon the king my brother’s wreck
21
And on the king my father’s death before him.
22
White bodies naked on the low damp ground
23
And bones cast in a little low dry garret,
24
Rattled by the rat’s foot only, year to year.
25
But at my back from time to time I hear
26
The sound of horns and motors, which shall bring
27
Sweeney to Mrs. Porter in the spring.
28
O the moon shone bright on Mrs. Porter
30
They wash their feet in soda water
31
Et, O ces voix d’enfants, chantant dans la coupole!
33
Jug jug jug jug jug jug
37
Under the brown fog of a winter noon
38
Mr Eugenides, the Smyrna merchant
39
Unshaven, with a pocket full of currants
40
C. i. f. London: documents at sight,
41
Asked me in demotic French
42
To luncheon at the Cannon Street Hotel
43
Followed by a week-end at the Metropole.
44
At the violet hour, when the eyes and back
45
Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits
46
Like a taxi throbbing waiting,
47
I Tiresias, though blind, throbbing between two lives,
48
Old man with wrinkled female breasts, can see
49
At the violet hour, the evening hour that strives
50
Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea,
51
The typist home at tea-time, clears her breakfast, lights
52
Her stove, and lays out food in tins.
53
Out of the window perilously spread
54
Her drying combinations touched by the sun’s last rays,
55
On the divan are piled (at night her bed)
56
Stockings, slippers, camisoles, and stays.
57
I Tiresias, old man with wrinkled dugs
58
Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest—
59
I too awaited the expected guest.
60
He, the young man carbuncular, arrives,
61
A small house-agent’s clerk, with one bold stare,
62
One of the low on whom assurance sits
63
As a silk hat on a Bradford millionaire.
64
The time is now propitious, as he guesses,
65
The meal is ended, she is bored and tired,
66
Endeavours to engage her in caresses
67
Which still are unreproved, if undesired.
68
Flushed and decided, he assaults at once;
69
Exploring hands encounter no defence;
70
His vanity requires no response,
71
And makes a welcome of indifference.
72
(And I Tiresias have foresuffered all
73
Enacted on this same divan or bed;
74
I who have sat by Thebes below the wall
75
And walked among the lowest of the dead.)
76
Bestows one final patronizing kiss,
77
And gropes his way, finding the stairs unlit…
78
She turns and looks a moment in the glass,
79
Hardly aware of her departed lover;
80
Her brain allows one half-formed thought to pass:
81
“Well now that’s done: and I’m glad it’s over.”
82
When lovely woman stoops to folly and
83
Paces about her room again, alone,
84
She smoothes her hair with automatic hand,
85
And puts a record on the gramophone.
87
“This music crept by me upon the waters”
88
And along the Strand, up Queen Victoria Street.
89
O City City, I can sometimes hear
90
Beside a public bar in Lower Thames Street,
91
The pleasant whining of a mandoline
92
And a clatter and a chatter from within
93
Where fishmen lounge at noon: where the walls
95
Inexplicable splendour of Ionian white and gold.
102
To leeward, swing on the heavy spar.
106
Past the Isle of Dogs.
109
Elizabeth and Leicester
122
“Trams and dusty trees.
123
Highbury bore me. Richmond and Kew
124
Undid me. By Richmond I raised my knees
125
Supine on the floor of a narrow canoe.“
126
“My feet are at Moorgate, and my heart
127
Under my feet. After the event
128
He wept. He promised ‘a new start.’
129
I made no comment. What should I resent?”
132
Nothing with nothing.
133
The broken finger-nails of dirty hands.
134
My people humble people who expect
137
To Carthage then I came
138
Burning burning burning burning
139
O Lord Thou pluckest me out
1
Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
2
Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep seas swell
3
And the profit and loss.
5
Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
6
He passed the stages of his age and youth
7
Entering the whirlpool.
9
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,
10
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.
5. V. WHAT THE THUNDER SAID
1
After the torch-light red on sweaty faces
2
After the frosty silence in the gardens
3
After the agony in stony places
4
The shouting and the crying
5
Prison and place and reverberation
6
Of thunder of spring over distant mountains
7
He who was living is now dead
8
We who were living are now dying
10
Here is no water but only rock
11
Rock and no water and the sandy road
12
The road winding above among the mountains
13
Which are mountains of rock without water
14
If there were water we should stop and drink
15
Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think
16
Sweat is dry and feet are in the sand
17
If there were only water amongst the rock
18
Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit
19
Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit
20
There is not even silence in the mountains
21
But dry sterile thunder without rain
22
There is not even solitude in the mountains
23
But red sullen faces sneer and snarl
24
From doors of mud-cracked houses
32
If there were the sound of water only
35
But sound of water over a rock
36
Where the hermit-thrush sings in the pine trees
37
Drip drop drip drop drop drop drop
39
Who is the third who walks always beside you?
40
When I count, there are only you and I together
41
But when I look ahead up the white road
42
There is always another one walking beside you
43
Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
44
I do not know whether a man or a woman
45
—But who is that on the other side of you?
47
What is that sound high in the air
48
Murmur of maternal lamentation
49
Who are those hooded hordes swarming
50
Over endless plains, stumbling in cracked earth
51
Ringed by the flat horizon only
52
What is the city over the mountains
53
Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air
55
Jerusalem Athens Alexandria
59
A woman drew her long black hair out tight
60
And fiddled whisper music on those strings
61
And bats with baby faces in the violet light
62
Whistled, and beat their wings
63
And crawled head downward down a blackened wall
64
And upside down in air were towers
65
Tolling reminiscent bells, that kept the hours
66
And voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells.
68
In this decayed hole among the mountains
69
In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing
70
Over the tumbled graves, about the chapel
71
There is the empty chapel, only the wind’s home.
72
It has no windows, and the door swings,
73
Dry bones can harm no one.
74
Only a cock stood on the roof-tree
76
In a flash of lightning. Then a damp gust
78
Ganga was sunken, and the limp leaves
79
Waited for rain, while the black clouds
80
Gathered far distant, over Himavant.
81
The jungle crouched, humped in silence.
82
Then spoke the thunder
84
Datta:what have we given?
85
My friend, blood shaking my heart
86
The awful daring of a moment’s surrender
87
Which an age of prudence can never retract
88
By this, and this only, we have existed
89
Which is not to be found in our obituaries
90
Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider
91
Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor
94
Dayadhvam:I have heard the key
95
Turn in the door once and turn once only
96
We think of the key, each in his prison
97
Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison
98
Only at nightfall, aetherial rumours
99
Revive for a moment a broken Coriolanus
101
Damyata:The boat responded
102
Gaily, to the hand expert with sail and oar
103
The sea was calm, your heart would have responded
104
Gaily, when invited, beating obedient
107
Fishing, with the arid plain behind me
108
Shall I at least set my lands in order?
109
London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down
110
Poi s’ascose nel foco che gli affina
111
Quando fiam ceu chelidon—O swallow swallow
112
Le Prince d’Aquitaine à la tour abolie
113
These fragments I have shored against my ruins
114
Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo’s mad againe.
115
Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.
117
Shantih shantih shantih
|
