* with ANNOTATIONS
** (and other explanations)
by Jonathan Vold
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0.2 by T.S. Eliot
0.3 ' Nam Sibyllam quidem Cumis ego ipse oculis meis
vidi in ampulla pendere, et cum illi pueri dicerent:
Σἰβυλλα τἱ θἐλεις ; respondebat illa: ἀποθανεἰν θἑλω.'
0.4 For Ezra Pound
il miglior fabbro.
1 April is the cruellest month, breeding
2 Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
3 Memory and desire, stirring
4 Dull roots with spring rain.
5 Winter kept us warm, covering
6 Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
7 A little life with dried tubers.
8 Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
9 With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
10 And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,
11 And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
12 Bin gar keine Russin, stamm’ aus Litauen, echt deutsch
13 And when we were children, staying at the archduke’s,
14 My cousin’s, he took me out on a sled,
15 And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
16 Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
17 In the mountains, there you feel free.
18 I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.
19 What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
20 Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
21 You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
22 A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
23 And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
24 And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
25 There is shadow under this red rock,
26 (Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
27 And I will show you something different from either
28 Your shadow at morning striding behind you
29 Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
30 I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
31 Frisch weht der Wind
32 Der Heimat zu
33 Mein Irisch Kind,
34 Wo weilest du?
35 'You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;
36 'They called me the hyacinth girl.'
37 —Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,
38 Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
39 Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
40 Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,
41 Looking into the heart of light, the silence.
42 Oed’ und leer das Meer.
43 Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante,
44 Had a bad cold, nevertheless
45 Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe,
46 With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she,
47 Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor,
48 (Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)
49 Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks,
50 The lady of situations.
51 Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel,
52 And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card,
53 Which is blank, is something he carries on his back,
54 Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find
55 The Hanged Man. Fear death by water.
56 I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring.
57 Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone,
58 Tell her I bring the horoscope myself:
59 One must be so careful these days.
60 Unreal City,
61 Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
62 A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
63 I had not thought death had undone so many.
64 Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,
65 And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.
66 Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,
67 To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours
68 With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.
69 There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying 'Stetson!
70 'You who were with me in the ships at Mylae!
71 'That corpse you planted last year in your garden,
72 'Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?
73 'Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?
74 'Oh keep the Dog far hence, that’s friend to men,
75 'Or with his nails he’ll dig it up again!
76 'You! hypocrite lecteur! —mon semblable, —mon frère!'
76.5 II. A GAME OF CHESS
77 The Chair she sat in, like a burnished throne,
78 Glowed on the marble, where the glass
79 Held up by standards wrought with fruited vines
80 From which a golden Cupidon peeped out
81 (Another hid his eyes behind his wing)
82 Doubled the flames of sevenbranched candelabra
83 Reflecting light upon the table as
84 The glitter of her jewels rose to meet it,
85 From satin cases poured in rich profusion.
86 In vials of ivory and coloured glass
87 Unstoppered, lurked her strange synthetic perfumes,
88 Unguent, powdered, or liquid — troubled, confused
89 And drowned the sense in odours; stirred by the air
90 That freshened from the window, these ascended
91 In fattening the prolonged candle-flames,
92 Flung their smoke into the laquearia,
93 Stirring the pattern on the coffered ceiling.
94 Huge sea-wood fed with copper
95 Burned green and orange, framed by the coloured stone,
96 In which sad light a carvèd dolphin swam
97 Above the antique mantel was displayed
98 As though a window gave upon the sylvan scene
99 The change of Philomel, by the barbarous king
100 So rudely forced; yet there the nightingale
101 Filled all the desert with inviolable voice
102 And still she cried, and still the world pursues,
103 'Jug Jug' to dirty ears.
104 And other withered stumps of time
105 Were told upon the walls; staring forms
106 Leaned out, leaning, hushing the room enclosed.
107 Footsteps shuffled on the stair.
108 Under the firelight, under the brush, her hair
109 Spread out in fiery points
110 Glowed into words, then would be savagely still.
111 'My nerves are bad to-night. Yes, bad. Stay with me.
112 'Speak to me. Why do you never speak. Speak.
113 “What are you thinking of? What thinking? What?
114 'I never know what you are thinking. Think.'
115 I think we are in rats' alley
116 Where the dead men lost their bones.
117 'What is that noise?'
118 The wind under the door.
119 'What is that noise now? What is the wind doing?'
120 Nothing again nothing.
121 'Do
122 'You know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember
123 'Nothing?'
124 I remember
125 Those are pearls that were his eyes.
126 'Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your head?'
127 But
128 O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag—
129 It's so elegant
130 So intelligent
131 'What shall I do now? What shall I do?
132 'I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street
133 'With my hair down, so. What shall we do tomorrow?
134 'What shall we ever do?'
135 The hot water at ten.
136 And if it rains, a closed car at four.
137 And we shall play a game of chess,
138 Pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a knock upon the door.
139 When Lil's husband got demobbed, I said —
140 I didn't mince my words, I said to her myself,
141 HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
142 Now Albert's coming back, make yourself a bit smart.
143 He'll want to know what you done with that money he gave you
144 To get herself some teeth. He did, I was there.
145 You have them all out, Lil, and get a nice set,
146 He said, I swear, I can't bear to look at you.
147 And no more can't I, I said, and think of poor Albert,
148 He's been in the army for four years, he wants a good time,
149 And if you don't give it him, there's others will, I said.
150 Oh is there, she said. Something o' that, I said.
151 Then I'll know who to thank, she said, and give me a straight look.
152 HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
153 If you don't like it you can get on with it, I said.
154 Others can pick and choose if you can't.
155 But if Albert makes off, it won't be for a lack of telling.
156 You ought to be ashamed, I said, to look so antique.
157 (And her only thirty-one.)
158 I can't help it, she said, pulling a long face,
159 It's them pills I took, to bring it off, she said.
160 (She's had five already, and nearly died of young George.)
161 The chemist said it would be all right, but I've never been the same.
162 You are a proper fool, I said.
163 Well, if Albert won't leave you alone, there it is, I said,
164 What you get married for if you don't want children?
165 HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
166 Well, that Sunday Albert was home, they had a hot gammon,
167 And they asked me in to dinner, to get the beauty of it hot —
168 HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
169 HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
170 Goonight Bill. Goonight Lou. Goonight May. Goonight.
171 Ta ta. Goonight. Goonight.
172 Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night.
172.5 III. THE FIRE SERMON
173 The river's tent is broken; the last fingers of leaf
174 Clutch and sink into the wet bank. The wind
175 Crosses the brown land, unheard. The nymphs are departed.
176 Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song.
177 The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers,
178 Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends
179 Or other testimony of summer nights. The nymphs are departed.
180 And their friends, the loitering heirs of City directors;
181 Departed, have left no addresses.
182 By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept . . .
183 Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song,
184 Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or long.
185 But at my back in a cold blast I hear
186 The rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear.
187 A rat crept softly through the vegetation
188 Dragging its slimy belly on the bank
189 While I was fishing in the dull canal
190 On a winter evening round behind the gashouse
191 Musing upon the king my brother's wreck
192 And on the king my father's death before him
193 White bodies naked on the low damp ground
194 And bones cast in a little low dry garret,
195 Rattled by the rat's foot only, year to year.
196 But at my back from time to time I hear
197 The sound of horns and motors, which shall bring
198 Sweeney to Mrs. Porter in the spring.
199 O the moon shone bright on Mrs. Porter
200 And on her daughter
201 They wash their feet in soda water
202 Et O ces voix d'enfants, chantant dans la coupole!
203 Twit twit twit
204 Jug jug jug jug jug jug
205 So rudely forc'd.
206 Tereu
207 Unreal City
208 Under the brown fog of a winter noon
209 Mr. Eugenides, the Smyrna merchant
210 Unshaven, with a pocket full of currants
211 C.i.f. London: documents at sight,
212 Asked me in demotic French
213 To luncheon at the Cannon Street Hotel
214 Followed by a weekend at the Metropole.
215 At the violet hour, when the eyes and back
216 Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits
217 Like a taxi throbbing waiting,
218 I Tiresias, though blind, throbbing between two lives,
219 Old man with wrinkled female breasts, can see
220 At the violet hour, the evening hour that strives
221 Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea,
222 The typist home at teatime, clears her breakfast, lights
223 Her stove, and lays out food in tins.
224 Out of the window perilously spread
225 Her drying combinations touched by the sun's last rays,
226 On the divan are piled (at night her bed)
227 Stockings, slippers, camisoles, and stays.
228 I Tiresias, old man with wrinkled dugs
229 Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest —
230 I too awaited the expected guest.
231 He, the young man carbuncular, arrives,
232 A small house agent's clerk, with one bold stare,
233 One of the low on whom assurance sits
234 As a silk hat on a Bradford millionaire.
235 The time is now propitious, as he guesses,
236 The meal is ended, she is bored and tired,
237 Endeavours to engage her in caresses
238 Which are still unreproved, if undesired.
239 Flushed and decided, he assaults at once;
240 Exploring hands encounter no defence;
241 His vanity requires no response,
242 And makes a welcome of indifference.
243 (And I Tiresias have foresuffered all
244 Enacted on this same divan or bed;
245 I who have sat by Thebes below the wall
246 And walked among the lowest of the dead.)
247 Bestows one final patronising kiss,
248 And gropes his way, finding the stairs unlit . . .
249 She turns and looks a moment in the glass,
250 Hardly aware of her departed lover;
251 Her brain allows one half-formed thought to pass:
252 'Well now that's done: and I'm glad it's over.'
253 When lovely woman stoops to folly and
254 Paces about her room again, alone,
255 She smoothes her hair with automatic hand,
256 And puts a record on the gramophone.
257 'This music crept by me upon the waters'
258 And along the Strand, up Queen Victoria Street.
259 O City city, I can sometimes hear
260 Beside a public bar in Lower Thames Street,
261 The pleasant whining of a mandoline
262 And a clatter and a chatter from within
263 Where fishmen lounge at noon: where the walls
264 Of Magnus Martyr hold
265 Inexplicable splendour of Ionian white and gold.
266 The river sweats
267 Oil and tar
268 The barges drift
269 With the turning tide
270 Red sails
271 Wide
272 To leeward, swing on the heavy spar.
273 The barges wash
274 Drifting logs
275 Down Greenwich reach
276 Past the Isle of Dogs.
277 Weialala leia
278 Wallala leialala
279 Elizabeth and Leicester
280 Beating oars
281 The stern was formed
282 A gilded shell
283 Red and gold
284 The brisk swell
285 Rippled both shores
286 Southwest wind
287 Carried down stream
288 The peal of bells
289 White towers
290 Weialala leia
291 Wallala leialala
292 'Trams and dusty trees.
293 Highbury bore me. Richmond and Kew
294 Undid me. By Richmond I raised my knees
295 Supine on the floor of a narrow canoe.'
296 'My feet are at Moorgate and my heart
297 Under my feet. After the event
298 He wept. He promised "a new start."
299 I made no comment. What should I resent?'
300 'On Margate Sands.
301 I can connect
302 Nothing with nothing.
303 The broken fingernails of dirty hands.
304 My people humble people who expect
305 Nothing.'
306 la la
307 To Carthage then I came
308 Burning burning burning burning
309 O Lord Thou pluckest me out
310 O Lord Thou pluckest
311 burning
311.5 IV. DEATH BY WATER
312 Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
313 Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell
314 And the profit and loss.
315 A current under sea
316 Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
317 He passed the stages of his age and youth
318 Entering the whirlpool.
319 Gentile or Jew
320 O you who turn the wheel and look windward,
321 Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.
321.5 V. WHAT THE THUNDER SAID
322 After the torchlight red on sweaty faces
323 After the frosty silence in the gardens
324 After the agony in stony places
325 The shouting and the crying
326 Prison and palace and reverberation
327 Of thunder of spring over distant mountains
328 He who was living is now dead
329 We who were living are now dying
330 With a little patience
331 Here is no water but only rock
332 Rock and no water and the sandy road
333 The road winding above among the mountains
334 Which are mountains of rock without water
335 If there were water we should stop and drink
336 Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think
337 Sweat is dry and feet are in the sand
338 If there were only water amongst the rock
339 Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit
340 Here one can neither stand not lie nor sit
341 There is not even silence in the mountains
342 But dry sterile thunder without rain
343 There is not even solitude in the mountains
344 But red sullen faces sneer and snarl
345 From doors of mudcracked houses
346 If there were water
347 And no rock
348 If there were rock
349 And also water
350 And water
351 A spring
352 A pool among the rock
353 If there were the sound of water only
354 Not the cicada
355 And dry grass singing
356 But sound of water over a rock
357 Where the hermit-thrush sings in the pine trees
358 Drop drop drip drop drop drop drop
359 But there is no water
360 Who is the third who walks always beside you?
361 When I count, there are only you and I together
362 But when I look ahead up the white road
363 There is always another one walking beside you
364 Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
365 I do not know whether a man or a woman
366 — But who is that on the other side of you?
367 What is that sound high in the air
368 Murmur of maternal lamentation
369 Who are those hooded hordes swarming
370 Over endless plains, stumbling in cracked earth
371 Ringed by the flat horizon only
372 What is the city over the mountains
373 Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air
374 Falling towers
375 Jerusalem Athens Alexandria
376 Vienna London
377 Unreal
378 A woman drew her long black hair out tight
379 And fiddled whisper music on those strings
380 And bats with baby faces in the violet light
381 Whistled, and beat their wings
382 And crawled head downward down a blackened wall
383 And upside down in air were towers
384 Tolling reminiscent bells, that kept the hours
385 And voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells.
386 In this decayed hole among the mountains
387 In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing
388 Over the tumbled graves, about the chapel
389 There is the empty chapel, only the wind's home.
390 It has no windows, and the door swings,
391 Dry bones can harm no one.
392 Only a cock stood on the rooftree
393 Co co rico co co rico
394 In a flash of lightning. Then a damp gust
395 Bringing rain
396 Ganga was sunken, and the limp leaves
397 Waited for rain, while the black clouds
398 Gathered far distant, over Himavant.
399 The jungle crouched, humped in silence.
400 Then spoke the thunder
401 DA
402 Datta: what have we given?
403 My friend, blood shaking my heart
404 The awful daring of a moment's surrender
405 Which an age of prudence can never retract
406 By this, and this only, we have existed
407 Which is not to be found in our obituaries
408 Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider
409 Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor
410 In our empty rooms
411 DA
412 Dayadhvam: I have heard the key
413 Turn in the door once and turn once only
414 We think of the key, each in his prison
415 Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison
416 Only at nightfall, aethereal rumours
417 Revive for a moment a broken Coriolanus
418 DA
419 Damyata: The boat responded
420 Gaily, to the hand expert with sail and oar
421 The sea was calm, your heart would have responded
422 Gaily, when invited, beating obedient
423 To controlling hands
424 I sat upon the shore
425 Fishing, with the arid plain behind me
426 Shall I at least set my lands in order?
427 London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down
428 Poi s'ascose nel foco che gli affina
429 Quando fiam ceu chelidon — O swallow swallow
430 Le Prince d'Aquitaine à la tour abolie
431 These fragments I have shored against my ruins
432 Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo's mad againe.
433 Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.
434 Shantih shantih shantih
