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"Nam
Sibyllam quidem Cumis ego ipse oculis meis
vidi in
ampulla pendere, et cum illi pueri dicerent:
Sibylla
ti theleis; respondebat illa: apothanein thelo."
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,
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
archduke'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,
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.
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,
Looking
into the heart of light, the silence.
Oed' 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.
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,
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!
"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 frere!"
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
(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
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
carved 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
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.
"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.
"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
"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 to-morrow?
"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,
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS 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, I said, 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.
Then I'll know who to
thank, she said, and give me a straight look.
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS 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.)
The chemist said it would be
alright, 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 ITS 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 ITS TIME
HURRY
UP PLEASE ITS TIME
Goonight Bill. Goonight Lou.
Goonight May. Goonight.
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;
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
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
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
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 upward
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
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.
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;
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;
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,
The pleasant whining of a
mandoline
And a clatter and a chatter from within
Where fishmen 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
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
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
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.
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
burning
IV. DEATH BY WATER
Phlebas the
Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
Forgot the cry of
gulls, and the deep 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,
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
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
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
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
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
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
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.
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
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
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, aetherial 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
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 ceu chelidon - O swallow swallow
Le
Prince d'Aquitaine a la tour abolie
These fragments
I have shored against my ruins
Why then Ile fit you.
Hieronymo's mad againe.
Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.
Shantih shantih shantih
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