by Thomas Stearns Eliot
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. |
spaceIn the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo. The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes
|
spaceAnd 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 will 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. |
spaceIn the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo. spaceAnd indeed there will be time
|
spaceFor I have known them all already, known them them all:-
Have known the evenings, morning, 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. spaceSo how should I presume? |
spaceAnd 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? spaceAnd how should I presume? |
spaceAnd 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. spaceAnd should I then presume? spaceAnd 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?... spaceI should have been a pair of ragged claws
And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
|
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? 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 greater 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. |
spaceAnd 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 towards some overwhelming question, To say, "I am Lazurus, come from the dead, Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all"- If one, settling pillow by her head, spaceShould say: "That is not what I meant at all. spaceThat is not it, at all." |
spaceAnd 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: space"That is not it at all, spaceThat 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. |
spaceI grow old . . . I grow old . . .
I shall the wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. |
spaceShall 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. spaceI do not think that they will sing to me. spaceI have seen them riding seaward on the waves
spaceWe have lingered in the chambers of the sea
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