There is a passage at the beginning of The Waste Land that is missing above. It is included below. Comments, translations, and notes in blue. 


"NAM Sibyllam quidem Cumis ego ipse oculis meis vidi in ampulla pendere, et cum illi pueri dicerent: ; respondebat illa:

Latin and Greek - From the Satyricon of Petronius (d. A.D. 66), chapter 48. 

"With my own eyes I saw the Sybil of Cumae hanging in a bottle; and when the boys said to her: "[Sybil, what do you want?]" she replied, "[I want to die.]"


For Ezra Pound
il miglior fabbro.    (the better craftsman)


The Waste Land 
 
 
Part 1 - 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. I'm not Russian at all, I come from Lithuania, a true German.
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, 
You canot 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 handfull of dust. 
   Frish weht der Wind    Fresh blows the wind
   Der Heimat zu         To the homeland 
   Mein Irisch Kind,   My Irish darling
   Wo weilest du?    Where do you linger?
'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.    Desolate and empty the sea.
 
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? 
'O 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!'      You! hypocrite reader!--my double,--my brother!
 
Part 2 - 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 seven-branched candleabra 
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 perfume 
Unguent, powdered, or liquid--troubled, vondused 
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 colored 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 t-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 rat's 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 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, 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 for 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 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 had five already and nearly died of young George.) 
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 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-- 
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. 
 
Part 3 - 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 ratttle of bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear. 
 
A rat crept softly through 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 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!     And, O those children's voices singing in the dome! [choirloft]

 
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 are still unreproved, if undesired. 
Flushed and decided, he assaults at one; 
Exploring hands rencounter 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 amongh 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 love; 
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 smooths her hair with automatic hand, 
And puts a record on the gramaphone. 
 
'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 mandolin 
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 Moorgate, and my heart 
   Under my feet. After the event 
   He wept. He promisd "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 
 
Part 4 - 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 whirpool. 
Gentile or Jew 
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward, 
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you. 
 
Part 5 - 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 slience 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 
Why 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 burst 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 upsdie 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 an empty chapel, on the wind's home. 
It has no windows, and the door swings, 
Dry bones can harm no one. 
Only a thingy 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 give?   Datta  "Give"
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 beneficient spider 
Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor 
In our empty rooms 
DA 
Dayadhvam: I have heard the key   Dayadhvam   "Sympathize"
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    Damyata   "Control or restrain yourselves"
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 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  Then he hid himself in the fire that purifies them.
Quando fiam uti chelidon--O swallow swallow  When shall I become like the swallow?
Le Prince d'Aquitaine a la tour abolie  The prince of Aquitainia in the abandoned tower
These fragments I have shored against my ruins 
Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo's mad againe. 
Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata. 
   Shantih    shantih    shantih 

Eliot translated Shantih as "The Peace which passeth understanding". 

Philippians iv, 7: And the Peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

I thought I'd contribute to this thread with a poem of his that can't be ignored, and one of my personal favourites.

Enjoy... 'Tis delectable!

Regards,
Petite

The Hollow Men
T.S. Eliot


    Mistah Kurtz -- he dead.

              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.

T.S. Eliot was born in St Louis, Missouri on September 26, 1888 and along with a few fellow poets, William Butler Yeats and Ezra Pound, they set out and raised the bar on poetry as a whole.

Eliot was one of many poets who intimidated me until this year.  However, once you get past the initial "Oh my God this is Eliot" thoughts --  he really is worth the time and effort to read and not as hard to understand as I once imagined.

Mary

T.S. Eliot quote upon receiving the Nobel.

[Poetry] may make us from time to time a little more aware of the deeper, unnamed feelings which form the substratum of our being, to which we rarely penetrate; for our lives are mostly a constant evasion of ourselves.


The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

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!]   
It is 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. 

==================================

The Wasteland


Part 1 - 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 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,
You canot 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 evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handfull of dust.
    Frish 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?
'O 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!'

Part 2 - 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 seven-branched candleabra
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 perfume
Unguent, powdered, or liquid--troubled, vondused
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 colored 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.
Footstpes 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 t-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 rat's 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 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, 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 for 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 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 had five already and nearly died of young George.)
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 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--
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
Goodnight Bill. Goodnight Lou. Goodnight May. Goodnight.
Ta ta. Goodnight. Goodnight.
Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night.

Part 3 - 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 ratttle of bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear.

A rat crept softly through 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 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 are still unreproved, if undesired.
Flushed and decided, he assaults at one;
Exploring hands rencounter 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 amongh 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 love;
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 smooths her hair with automatic hand,
And puts a record on the gramaphone.

'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 mandolin
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 Moorgate, and my heart
    Under my feet. After the event
    He wept. He promisd "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

Part 4 - Death by Water

Phelbas 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 whirpool.
Gentile or Jew
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.

Part 5 - 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 slience 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
Why 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 burst 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 upsdie 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 an empty chapel, on the wind's home.
It has no windows, and the door swings,
Dry bones can harm no one.
Only a thingy 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 give?
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 beneficient 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, 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
Gaily, when invited, beating obedient
To controlling hands
      I sat upon the shore
Fishing, with 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 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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