Robert Montgomery

The Double Shame

You must live though the time when everything hurts
When the space of the ripe, loaded afternoon
Expands to a landscape of white heat frozen
And trees are weighed down with hearts of stone
And green stares back where you stare alone,
And the walking eyes throw flinty comments,
And the words which carry most knives are the blind
Phrases searching to be kind.

Solid and usual objects are ghosts
The furniture carries cargoes of memory,
The staircase has corners which remember
As fire blows reddest in gusty embers,
And each empty dress cuts out an image
In fur and evening and summer and spring
of her who was different in each.

Pull down the blind and lie on the bed
And clasp the hour in the glass of one room
Against your mouth like a crystal doom.
Take up the book and stare at the letters
Hieroglyphs on sand and as meaningless –
Here birds crossed once and a foot once trod
In a mist where sight and sound are blurred.

The story of others who made their mistakes
And of one whose happiness pierced like a star
Eludes and evades between sentences
And the letters break into eyes which read
The story life writes now in your head
As though the characters sought for some clue
To their being transcendently living and dead
In your history, worse than theirs, but true.

Set in the mind of their poet, they compare
Their tragic sublime with your tawdry despair
And they have fingers which accuse
You of the double way of shame.
At first you did not love enough
And afterwards you loved too much
And you lacked the confidence to choose
And you have only yourself to blame.

Stephen Spender

The star has wept rose-colour

The star has wept rose-colour in the heart of your ears,

The infinite rolled white from your nape to the small of your back

The sea has broken russet at your vermilion nipples, 

And Man bled black at your royal side.

Arthur Rimbaud

Mouthful of Forevers

I am not the first person you loved.
You are not the first person I looked at
with a mouthful of forevers. We
have both known loss like the sharp edges
of a knife. We have both lived with lips
more scar tissue than skin. Our love came
unannounced in the middle of the night.
Our love came when we’d given up
on asking love to come. I think
that has to be part
of its miracle.
This is how we heal.
I will kiss you like forgiveness. You
will hold me like I’m hope. Our arms
will bandage and we will press promises
between us like flowers in a book.
I will write sonnets to the salt of sweat
on your skin. I will write novels to the scar
of your nose. I will write a dictionary
of all the words I have used trying
to describe the way it feels to have finally,
finally found you.
And I will not be afraid
of your scars.
I know sometimes
it’s still hard to let me see you
in all your cracked perfection,
but please know:
whether it’s the days you burn
more brilliant than the sun
or the nights you collapse into my lap
your body broken into a thousand questions,
you are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
I will love you when you are a still day.
I will love you when you are a hurricane.

 Clementine von Radics

I work all day, and get half drunk at night.
Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.
In time the curtain edges will grow light.
Till then I see what's really always there:
Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,
Making all thought impossible but how
And where and when I shall myself die.
Arid interrogation: yet the dread
Of dying, and being dead,
Flashes afresh to hold and horrify.
The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse
– The good not used, the love not given, time
Torn off unused – nor wretchedly because
An only life can take so long to climb
Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never:
But at the total emptiness forever,
The sure extinction that we travel to
And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,
Not to be anywhere,
And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.

This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
That vast moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die,
And specious stuff that says no rational being
Can fear a thing it cannot feel, not seeing
That this is what we fear – no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anaesthetic from which none come round.

And so it stays just on the edge of vision,
A small unfocused blur, a standing chill
That slows each impulse down to indecision.
Most things may never happen: this one will,
And realisation of it rages out
In furnace fear when we are caught without
People or drink. Courage is no good:
It means not scaring others. Being brave
Lets no-one off the grave.
Death is no different whined at than withstood.

Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape.
It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know,
Have always known, know that we can't escape
Yet can't accept. One side will have to go.
Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring
In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring
Intricate rented world begins to rouse.
The sky is white as clay, with no sun.
Work has to be done.
Postmen like doctors go from house to house.”


― Philip Larkin, Collected Poems

Rain

Rain, midnight rain, nothing but the wild rain
On this bleak hut, and solitude, and me
Remembering again that I shall die
And neither hear the rain nor give it thanks
For washing me cleaner than I have been
Since I was born into this solitude.
Blessed are the dead that the rain rains upon:
But here I pray that none whom once I loved
Is dying to-night or lying still awake
Solitary, listening to the rain,
Either in pain or thus in sympathy
Helpless among the living and the dead,
Like a cold water among broken reeds,
Myriads of broken reeds all still and stiff,
Like me who have no love which this wild rain
Has not dissolved except the love of death,
If love it be towards what is perfect and
Cannot, the tempest tells me, disappoint.

-Edward Thomas

lonesome night

watch it grow, this lonesome night
this night i wish would fade to white
watch it breathing lullabies
watch it breathing through its eyes
my conscience sings itself to sleep
sow, it says, what you must reap
but the road i've strolled has led me down
to my greentown lonesome town
so now i'm here and i cannot leave
i cannot make what kings achieve
when the world is cold and still
look out through your window-sill
watch it rise, this deathly plight
watch it grow, this lonesome night
the stars they're glowing yellow-white
the stars they're glowing crimson-bright
never dancing out of sight
never reading what i write
the stars they made my heart ignite
they need no love they have no fear
this lonesome night i disappear.

The Song of Wandering Aengus

I went out to the hazel wood,   
Because a fire was in my head,   
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,   
And hooked a berry to a thread;   
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,   
I dropped the berry in a stream   
And caught a little silver trout.   
   
When I had laid it on the floor   
I went to blow the fire a-flame,
But something rustled on the floor,   
And someone called me by my name:   
It had become a glimmering girl   
With apple blossom in her hair   
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.   
   
Though I am old with wandering   
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,   
I will find out where she has gone,   
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,   
And pluck till time and times are done,   
The silver apples of the moon,   
The golden apples of the sun.

W.B.Yeats

Full Moon and Little Frida

A cool small evening shrunk to a dog bark and the clank of a bucket –
And you listening.
A spider's web, tense for the dew's touch.
A pail lifted, still and brimming – mirror
To tempt a first star to a tremor.

Cows are going home in the lane there, looping the hedges with their warm
wreaths of breath –
A dark river of blood, many boulders,
Balancing unspilled milk.
'Moon!' you cry suddenly, 'Moon! Moon!'

The moon has stepped back like an artist gazing amazed at a work
That points at him amazed.

-Ted Hughes

Because She Would Ask Me Why I Loved Her

If questioning would make us wise
No eyes would ever gaze in eyes;
If all our tale were told in speech
No mouths would wander each to each.

Were spirits free from mortal mesh
And love not bound in hearts of flesh
No aching breasts would yearn to meet
And find their ecstasy complete.

For who is there that lives and knows
The secret powers by which he grows?
Were knowledge all, what were our need
To thrill and faint and sweetly bleed?.

Then seek not, sweet, the "If" and "Why"
I love you now until I die.
For I must love because I live
And life in me is what you give.

Christopher Brennan

Music Swims Back to Me

Wait Mister. Which way is home?   

They turned the light out

and the dark is moving in the corner.   

There are no sign posts in this room,   

four ladies, over eighty,

in diapers every one of them.

La la la, Oh music swims back to me   

and I can feel the tune they played   

the night they left me

in this private institution on a hill.

Imagine it. A radio playing

and everyone here was crazy.

I liked it and danced in a circle.   

Music pours over the sense   

and in a funny way

music sees more than I.

I mean it remembers better;

remembers the first night here.

It was the strangled cold of November;   

even the stars were strapped in the sky   

and that moon too bright

forking through the bars to stick me   

with a singing in the head.

I have forgotten all the rest.

They lock me in this chair at eight a.m.   

and there are no signs to tell the way,   

just the radio beating to itself   

and the song that remembers   

more than I. Oh, la la la,   

this music swims back to me.   

The night I came I danced a circle   

and was not afraid.

Mister? 

 

-Anne Sexton

in a middle of a room

in a middle of a room
stands a suicide
sniffing a Paper rose
smiling to a self

"somewhere it is Spring and sometimes
people are in real:imagine
somewhere real flowers,but
I can't imagine real flowers for if I

could,they would somehow
not Be real"
(so he smiles
smiling)"but I will not

everywhere be real to
you in a moment"
The is blond
with small hands

"& everything is easier
than I had guessed everything would
be;even remembering the way who
looked at whom first,anyhow dancing"

(a moon swims out of a cloud
a clock strikes midnight
a finger pulls a trigger
a bird flies into a mirror)

-e.e.cummings

When The Bees Fell Silent

An old man
suddenly died
alone in his garden under an elderberry bush.
He lay there til dark,when the bees
fell silent.


A lovely way to die, wasn't it,
doctor, says
the woman in black
who comes to the garden
as before,
every Saturday,

in her bag always

lunch for two.

- Miroslav Holub

Words and Music

A Play by Samuel Beckett

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

MUSIC: Small orchestra softly tuning up.
WORDS: Please! (Tuning. Louder.) Please! (Tuning dies away.) How much longer cooped up here, in the dark? (With loathing.) With you! (Pause.) Theme ... (Pause.) Theme... sloth. (Pause. Rattled off, low.) Sloth is of all the passions the most powerful passion and indeed no passion is more powerful than the passion of sloth, this is the mode in which the mind is most affected and indeed-(Burst of tuning. Loud, imploring.) Please! (Tuning dies away. As before.) The mode in which the mind is most affected and indeed in no mode is the mind more affected than in this, by passion we are to understand a movement of the soul pursuing or fleeing real or imagined, pleasure or pain, pleasure or pain, real or imagined pleasure or pain, of all these movements and who can number them of all these movements and they are legion sloth is the most urgent and indeed by no movement is the soul more urged than by this by this by this to and from by no movement the soul more urged than by this to and-(Pause.) From. (Pause.) Listen! (Distant sound of rapidly shuffling carpet slippers.) At last! (Shuffling louder. Burst of tuning.) Hsst!
Tuning dies away. Shuffling louder. Silence.
CROAK: Joe.
WORDS: (humble). My Lord.
CROAK: Bob.
MUSIC: Humble muted adsum.
CROAK: My comforts! Be friends! (Pause.) Bob.
MUSIC: As before.
CROAK: Joe.
WORDS: (as before). My Lord.
CROAK: Be friends! (Pause.) I am late, forgive. (Pause.) The face. (Pause.) On the stairs. (Pause.) Forgive.(Pause.) Joe.
WORDS: (as before). My Lord.
CROAK: Bob.
MUSIC: As before.
CROAK: Forgive. (Pause.) In the tower. (Pause.) The face. (Long pause.) Theme tonight ... (Pause.) Theme tonight... love. (Pause.) Love. (Pause.) My club. (Pause.) Joe.
WORDS: (as before). My Lord.
CROAK: Love. (Pause. Thump of club on ground.) Love!
WORDS: (orotund). Love is of all the passions the most powerful passion and indeed no passion is more powerful than the passion of love. (Clears throat.) This is the mode in which the mind is most strongly affected and indeed in no mode is the mind more strongly affected than in this.
Pause.
CROAK: (Rending sigh. Thump of club.)
WORDS: (as before). By passion we are to understand a movement of the mind pursuing or fleeing real or imagined pleasure or pain. (Clears throat.) Of all-
CROAK: (anguished). Oh!
WORDS: (as before). Of all these movements then and who can number them and they are legion sloth is the... LOVE is the most urgent and indeed by no manner of movement is the soul more urged than by this, to and -
Violent thump of club.

CROAK: Bob.
WORDS: From.
Violent thump of club.
CROAK: Bob!
MUSIC: As before.
CROAK- Love!
MUSIC: Rap of baton on stand. Soft music worthy of foregoing, great expression, with audible groans and protestations- "No!" "Please etc.-from WORDS. Pause.
CROAK: (anguished). Oh! (Thump of club.) Louder!
MUSIC: Loud rap of baton and as before fortissimo, all expression gone, drowning WORDS' protestations.
Pause.
CROAK: My comforts. (Pause.) Joe sweet.
WORDS: (as before). Arise then and go now the manifest unanswerable-
CROAK: Groans.
WORDS: ... to wit this love what is this love that more than all the cursed deadly or any other of its great movers so moves the soul and soul what is this soul that more than by any of its great movers is by love so moved? (Clears throat. Prosaic.) Love of woman, I mean, if that is what my Lord means.
CROAK: Alas!
WORDS: What? (Pause. Very rhetorical.) Is love the word? (Pause. Do.) Is soul the word? (Pause. Do.) Do we mean love, when we say love? (Pause. Do.) Soul, when we say soul?
Pause.
CROAK: (anguished). Oh! (Pause.) Bob dear.
WORDS: Do we? (With sudden gravity.) Or don't we?
CROAK: (imploring). Bob!
MUSIC: Rap of baton. Love and soul music, with just audible protestations-"No!" "Please" "Peace" etc.-from WORDS. Pause.
CROAK: (anguished). Oh! (Pause.) My balms! (Pause.) Joe.
WORDS: (humble). My Lord.
CROAK: Bob.
MUSIC: Adsum as before.
CROAK: My balms! (Pause.) Age. (Pause.) Joe. (Pause. Thump of club.) Joe!
WORDS: (as before). My Lord.
CROAK: Age!
Pause.
WORDS: (faltering). Age is ... age is when ... old age I mean... if that is what my Lord means ... is when ... if you're a man were a man ... huddled ... nodding ... the ingle waiting for-
Violent thump of club.
CROAK: Bob. (Pause.) Age. (Pause. Violent thump of club.) Age!
MUSIC: Rap of baton. Age music, soon interrupted by violent thump.
CROAK: Together. (Pause. Thump.) Together! (Pause. Violent thump.) Together, dogs!
MUSIC: Long la.
WORDS: (imploring). No!
Violent thump.
CROAKS: Dogs!
MUSIC: La.
WORDS: (trying to sing). Age is when ... to a man...
MUSIC: Improvement of above.
WORDS: (trying to sing this). Age is when to a man . . .
MUSIC: Suggestion for following.
WORDS: (trying to sing this). Huddled o'er . . . the ingle (Pause. Violent thump. Trying to sing.) Waiting for the hag to put the ... pan ... in the bed...
MUSIC: Improvement of above.
WORDS: (trying to sing this). Waiting for the hag to put the pan in the bed...
MUSIC: Suggestion for following.
WORDS: (trying to sing this). And bring the ... arrowroot (Pause. Violent thump. As before.) And bring the toddy.
Pause. Tremendous thump.
CROAK: Dogs!
MUSIC: Suggestion for following.
WORDS: (trying to sing this). She comes in the ashes ... (Imploring.) No!
MUSIC: Repeats suggestion.
WORDS: (trying to sing this). She comes in the ashes who loved could not be ... won or...
Pause.
MUSIC: Repeats end of previous suggestion.
WORDS: (trying to sing this). Or won not loved ... (wearily)… or some other trouble ... (Pause. Trying to sing.) Comes in the ashes like in that old-
MUSIC: Interrupts with improvement of this, and brief suggestion.
WORDS: (trying to sing this). Comes in the ashes like in that old light ... her face ... in the ashes . . .
Pause.
CROAK: Groans.
MUSIC: Suggestion for following.
WORDS: (trying to sing this). That old moonlight ... on the earth... again.
Pause.
MUSIC: Further brief suggestion.
Silence.
CROAK: Groans.
MUSIC: Plays air through alone, then invites WORDS with opening, pause, invites again and finally accompanies WORDS very softly
WORDS: (trying to sing, softly).
Age is when to a man
Huddled o'er the ingle
Shivering for the hag
To put the pan in the bed
And bring the toddy
She comes in the ashes
Who loved could not be won
Or won not loved
Or some other trouble
Comes in the ashes
Like in that old light
The face in the ashes
That old starlight
On the earth again.

Long pause.
CROAK: (murmur). The face. (Pause.) The face. (Pause.) The face. (Pause.) The face.
MUSIC: Rap of baton and warmly sentimental, about one minute.
Pause.
CROAK: The face.
WORDS: (cold). Seen from above in that radiance so cold and faint...
Pause.
MUSIC: Warm suggestion from above for above.
WORDS: (disregarding, cold). Seen from above at such close quarters in that radiance so cold and faint with eyes so dimmed by . . . what had passed, its quite . . . piercing beauty is a little...
Pause.
MUSIC: Renews timidly previous suggestion.
WORDS: (interrupting, violently). Peace!
CROAK: My comforts! Be friends!
Pause.

WORDS: ... blunted. Some moments later however, such are the powers of recuperation at this age, the head is drawn back to a distance of two or three feet, the eyes widen to a stare and begin to feast again. (Pause.) What then is seen would have been better seen in the light of day, that is incontestable. But how often has it not, in recent months, how often, at all hours, under all angles, in cloud and shine, been seen, I mean. And there is, is there not, in that clarity of silver ... that clarity of silver ... is there not ... my Lord ... (Pause.) Now and then the rye, swayed by a light wind, casts and withdraws its shadow.
Pause.
CROAK: Groans.
WORDS: Leaving aside the features or lineaments proper, matchless severally and in their ordonnance-
CROAK: Groans.
WORDS: -flare of the black disordered hair as though spread wide on water, the brows knitted in a groove suggesting pain but simply concentration more likely all things considered on some consummate inner process, the eyes of course closed in keeping with this, the lashes . . . (pause) . . . the nose ... (pause) ... nothing, a little pinched perhaps, the lips...
CROAK: (anguished). Lily!
WORDS: ... tight, a gleam of tooth biting on the under, no coral, no swell, whereas normally...
CROAK: Groans.
WORDS: ... the whole so blanched and still that were it not for the great white rise and fall of the breasts, spreading as they mount and then subsiding to their natural ... aperture-
MUSIC: Irrepressible burst of spreading and subsiding music with vain protestations-"Peace!" "No!" "Please!" etc.-from WORDS. Triumph and conclusion.
Pause.
WORDS: (gently expostulatory). My Lord! (Pause. Faint thump of club.) I resume, so wan and still and so ravished away that it seems no more of the earth than Mira in the Whale, at her tenth and greatest magnitude on this particular night shining coldly down-as we say, looking up. (Pause.) Some moments later however, such are the powers-
CROAK: (anguished). No!
WORDS: -the brows uncloud, the lips part and the eyes ... (pause) . . . the brows uncloud, the nostrils dilate, the lips part and the eyes ... (pause) ... a little colour comes back into the cheeks and the eyes (reverently) ... open. (Pause.) Then down a little way (Pause. Change to poetic tone. Low.)
Then down a little way
Through the trash
To where ... towards where...
Pause.
MUSIC: Discreet suggestion for above.
WORDS: (trying to sing this).
Then down a little way
Through the trash
Towards where...
Pause.
MUSIC: Discreet suggestion for following.
WORDS: (trying to sing this).
All dark no begging
No giving no words
No sense no need...
Pause.
MUSIC: More confident suggestion for following.
WORDS: (trying to sing this).
Through the scum
Down a little way
To where one glimpse
Of that wellhead.
Pause.
MUSIC: Invites with opening, pause, invites again and finally accompanies WORDS very softly.
WORDS: (trying to sing, softly).
Then down a little way
Through the trash
Towards where
All dark no begging
No giving no words
No sense no need
Through the scum
Down a little way
To whence one glimpse
Of that wellhead.
(Pause. Shocked.) My Lord! (Sound of club let fall. As before.) My Lord! (Shuffling slippers, with halts. They die away. Long pause.) Bob. (Pause.) Bob!
MUSIC: Brief rude retort.
WORDS: Music. (Imploring.) Music!
Pause.
MUSIC: Rap of baton and statement with elements already used or wellhead alone.
Pause.
WORDS: Again. (Pause. Imploring.) Again!
MUSIC: As before or only very slightly varied.
Pause.
WORDS: (Deep sigh.)

END

Raw With Love

little dark girl with
kind eyes
when it comes time to
use the knife
I won't flinch and
i won't blame
you,
as I drive along the shore alone
as the palms wave,
the ugly heavy palms,
as the living does not arrive
as the dead do not leave,
i won't blame you,
instead
i will remember the kisses
our lips raw with love
and how you gave me
everything you had
and how I
offered you what was left of
me,
and I will remember your small room
the feel of you
the light in the window
your records
your books
our morning coffee
our noons our nights
our bodies spilled together
sleeping
the tiny flowing currents
immediate and forever
your leg my leg
your arm my arm
your smile and the warmth
of you
who made me laugh
again.
little dark girl with kind eyes
you have no
knife. the knife is
mine and i won't use it
yet.

- charles bukowski

How I Would Paint Happiness

Something sudden, a windfall,
a meteor shower. No—
a flowering tree releasing
all its blossoms at once,
and the one standing beneath it
unexpectedly robed in bloom,
transformed into a stranger
too beautiful to touch.


—Lisel Mueller

The Waste Land

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	5
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 archduke’s,
My cousin’s, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,	15
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,	25
(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;	35
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,	45
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.	55
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.	65
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!	75
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;	85
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,	95
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	105
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	115
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.	125
“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 to-morrow?
What shall we ever do?”
The hot water at ten.	135
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 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,	145
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.	150
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.	155
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 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	165
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.	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.	175
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	185
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.	195
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.	205
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 week-end at the Metropole.
At the violet hour, when the eyes and back	215
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	220
Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea,
The typist home at tea-time, 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,	225
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,	235
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	245
And walked among the lowest of the dead.)
Bestows one final patronizing 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,	255
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 fishmen lounge at noon: where the walls
Of Magnus Martyr hold
Inexplicable splendour of Ionian white and gold.	265
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	275
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	285
South-west 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.“	295
“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 finger-nails of dirty hands.
My people humble people who expect
Nothing.”	305
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 deep seas swell
And the profit and loss.
A current under sea	315
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 torch-light red on sweaty faces
After the frosty silence in the gardens
After the agony in stony places
The shouting and the crying	325
Prison and place 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	335
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 mud-cracked houses                                 If there were water	345
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	355
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?	365
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	375
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	385
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 roof-tree
Co co rico co co rico
In a flash of lightning. Then a damp gust
Bringing rain
Ganga was sunken, and the limp leaves	395
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	405
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, aetherial rumours	415
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?	425
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 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