The Poems of T. S. Eliot Volume I

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The Poems of T. S. Eliot Volume I Page 19

by Thomas Stearns Eliot, Christopher Ricks


  And guesses and supposes.

  And over there my Paladins

  15

  Are talking of effect and cause,

  With ‘learn to live by nature’s laws!’

  And ‘strive for social happiness

  And contact with your fellow-men

  In Reason: nothing to excess!’

  20

  As one leaves off the next begins.

  And one, a lady with a fan

  Cries to her waiting-maid discreet

  ‘Where shall I ever find the man!

  One who appreciates my soul;

  25

  I’d throw my heart beneath his feet.

  I’d give my life to his control.’

  (With more that I shall not repeat.)

  My marionettes (or so they say)

  Have these keen moments every day.

  [Commentary I 1081–84 · Textual History II 568]

  Spleen

  Sunday: this satisfied procession

  Of definite Sunday faces;

  Bonnets, silk hats, and conscious graces

  In repetition that displaces

  5

  Your mental self-possession

  By this unwarranted digression.

  Evening, lights, and tea!

  Children and cats in the alley;

  Dejection unable to rally

  10

  Against this dull conspiracy.

  And Life, a little bald and gray,

  Languid, fastidious, and bland,

  Waits, hat and gloves in hand,

  Punctilious of tie and suit

  15

  (Somewhat impatient of delay)

  On the doorstep of the Absolute.

  First Debate between the Body and Soul

  The August wind is shambling down the street

  A blind old man who coughs and spits sputters

  Stumbling among the alleys and the gutters.

  He pokes and prods

  5

  With senile patience

  The withered leaves

  Of our sensations—

  [Commentary I 1084–86 · Textual History II 568–69]

  And yet devoted to the pure idea

  One sits delaying in the vacant square

  10

  Forced to endure the blind inconscient stare

  Of twenty leering houses that exude

  The odour of their turpitude

  And a street piano through the dusty trees

  Insisting: ‘Make the best of your position’—

  15

  The pure Idea dies of inanition

  The street pianos through the trees

  Whine and wheeze

  Imaginations

  Masturbations

  20

  The withered leaves

  Of our sensations

  The eye retains the images,

  The sluggish brain will not react

  Nor distils

  25

  The dull precipitates of fact

  The emphatic mud of physical sense

  The cosmic smudge of an enormous thumb

  Posting bills

  On the soul. And always come

  30

  The whine and wheeze

  Of street pianos through the trees

  Imagination’s

  Poor Relations

  The withered leaves

  35

  Of our sensations.

  Absolute! complete idealist

  A supersubtle peasant

  (Conception most unpleasant)

  A supersubtle peasant in a shabby square

  40

  Assist me to the pure idea—

  Regarding nature without love or fear

  For a little while, a little while

  Standing our ground—

  Till life evaporates into a smile

  45

  Simple and profound.

  [Commentary I 1086–88 · Textual History II 569–70]

  Street pianos through the trees

  Whine and wheeze

  Imagination’s

  Defecations

  50

  The withered leaves

  Of our sensations—

  Easter: Sensations of April

  [I]

  The little negro girl who lives across the alley

  Brings back a red geranium from church;

  She repeats her little formulae of God.

  Geraniums, geraniums

  5

  On a third-floor window sill.

  Their perfume comes

  With the smell of heat

  From the asphalt street.

  Geraniums geraniums

  10

  Withered and dry

  Long laid by

  In the sweepings of the memory.

  The little negro girl across the alley

  Brings a geranium from Sunday school

  [Commentary I 1088–91 · Textual History II 570]

  II

  Daffodils

  Long yellow sunlight fills

  The cool secluded room

  Swept and set in order—

  5

  Smelling of earth and rain.

  And again

  The insistent sweet perfume

  And the impressions it preserves

  Irritate the imagination

  10

  Or the nerves.

  Ode

  THOMAS STEARNS ELIOT

  For the hour that is left us Fair Harvard, with thee,

  Ere we face the importunate years,

  In thy shadow we wait, while thy presence dispels

  Our vain hesitations and fears.

  5

  And we turn as thy sons ever turn, in the strength

  Of the hopes that thy blessings bestow,

  From the hopes and ambitions that sprang at thy feet

  To the thoughts of the past as we go.

  Yet for all of these years that to-morrow has lost

  10

  We are still the less able to grieve,

  With so much that of Harvard we carry away

  In the place of the life that we leave.

  And only the years that efface and destroy

  Give us also the vision to see

  15

  What we owe for the future, the present, and past,

  Fair Harvard, to thine and to thee.

  [Commentary I 1091–93 · Textual History II 570]

  Silence

  Along the city streets

  It is still high tide,

  Yet the garrulous waves of life

  Shrink and divide

  5

  With a thousand incidents

  Vexed and debated:—

  This is the hour for which we waited—

  This is the ultimate hour

  When life is justified.

  10

  The seas of experience

  That were so broad and deep,

  So immediate and steep,

  Are suddenly still.

  You may say what you will,

  15

  At such peace I am terrified.

  There is nothing else beside.

  Mandarins

  1

  Stands there, complete,

  Stiffly addressed with sword and fan:

  What of the crowds that ran,

  Pushed, stared, and huddled, at his feet,

  5

  Keen to appropriate the man?

  Indifferent to all these baits

  Of popular benignity

  He merely stands and waits

  Upon his own intrepid dignity;

  10

  With fixed regardless eyes—

  Looking neither out nor in—

  The centre of formalities.

  [Commentary I 1093–96 · Textual History II 571]

  A hero! and how much it means;

  How much—

  15

  The rest is merely shifting scenes.

  2

/>   Two ladies of uncertain age

  Sit by a window drinking tea

  (No persiflage!)

  With assured tranquillity

  5

  Regard

  A distant prospect of the sea.

  The outlines delicate and hard

  Of gowns that fall from neck and knee;

  Grey and yellow patterns move

  10

  From the shoulder to the floor.

  By attitude

  It would seem that they approve

  The abstract sunset (rich, not crude).

  And while one lifts her hand to pour

  15

  You have the other raise

  A thin translucent porcelain,

  Murmurs a word of praise.

  3

  The eldest of the mandarins,

  A stoic in obese repose,

  With intellectual double chins,

  Regards the corner of his nose;

  >

  [Commentary I 1096–99 · Textual History II 571]

  5

  The cranes that fly across a screen

  Pert, alert,

  Observe him with a frivolous mien—

  Indifferent idealist,

  World in fist,

  10

  Screen and cranes.

  And what of all that one has missed!

  And how life goes on different planes!

  4

  Still one more thought for pen and ink!

  (Though not indicative of spleen):

  How very few there are, I think

  Who see their outlines on the screen.

  5

  And so, I say, I find it good

  (Even if misunderstood)

  That demoiselles and gentlemen

  Walk out beneath the cherry trees,

  The goldwire dragons on their gowns

  10

  Expanded by the breeze.

  The conversation dignified

  Nor intellectual nor mean,

  And graceful, not too gay …

  And so I say

  15

  How life goes well in pink and green!

  [Commentary I 1100–1101 · Textual History II 571]

  Goldfish

  (Essence of Summer Magazines)

  I

  Always the August evenings come

  With preparation for the waltz

  The hot verandah making room

  For all the reminiscent tunes

  5

  —The Merry Widow and the rest—

  That call, recall

  So many nights and afternoons—

  August, with all its faults!

  And the waltzes turn, return;

  10

  The Chocolate Soldier assaults

  The tired Sphinx of the physical.

  What answer? We cannot discern.

  And the waltzes turn, return,

  Float and fall,

  15

  Like the cigarettes

  Of our marionettes

  Inconsequent, intolerable.

  II

  Embarquement pour Cythère

  Ladies, the moon is on its way!

  Is everybody here?

  And the sandwiches and ginger beer?

  If so, let us embark—

  5

  The night is anything but dark,

  Almost as clear as day.

  >

  [Commentary I 1101–1104 · Textual History II 571]

  It’s utterly illogical

  Our making such a start, indeed

  And thinking that we must return.

  10

  Oh no! why should we not proceed

  (As long as a cigarette will burn

  When you light it at the evening star)

  To porcelain land, what avatar

  Where blue-delft-romance is the law.

  15

  Philosophy through a paper straw!

  III

  On every sultry afternoon

  Verandah customs have the call

  White flannel ceremonial

  With cakes and tea

  5

  And guesses at eternal truths

  Sounding the depths with a silver spoon

  And dusty roses, crickets, sunlight on the sea And all.

  And should you ever hesitate

  10

  Among such charming scenes—

  Essence of summer magazines—

  Hesitate, and estimate

  How much is simple accident

  How much one knows

  15

  How much one means

  Well! among many apophthegms

  Here’s one that goes—

  Play to your conscience, through the maze

  Of means and ways

  20

  And wear the crown of your ideal

  Bays

  And rose.

  [Commentary I 1104–1106 · Textual History II 571–72]

  IV

  Among the débris of the year

  Of which the autumn takes its toll:—

  Old letters, programmes, unpaid bills

  Photographs, tennis shoes, and more,

  5

  Ties, postal cards, the mass that fills

  The limbo of a bureau drawer—

  Of which October takes its toll

  Among the débris of the year

  I find this headed ‘Barcarolle’.

  10

  ‘Along the wet paths of the sea

  A crowd of barking waves pursue

  Bearing what consequence to you

  And me.

  The neuropathic winds renew

  15

  Like marionettes who leave their graves

  Walking the waves

  Bringing the news from either Pole

  Or knowledge of the fourth dimension:

  ‘We beg to call to your attention

  20

  ‘Some minor problems of the soul.’

  —Your seamanship is very neat

  You scan the clouds, as if you knew,

  Your language nautical, complete;

  There’s nothing left for me to do.

  25

  And while you give the wheel a twist

  I gladly leave the rest to fate

  And contemplate

  The aged sybil in your eyes

  At the four crossroads of the world

  30

  Whose oracle replies:—

  ‘These problems seem importunate

  But after all do not exist.’

  [Commentary I 1106–1107 · Textual History II 572]

  Between the theoretic seas

  And your assuring certainties

  35

  I have my fears:

  —I am off for some Hesperides

  Of street pianos and small beers!

  Suite Clownesque

  I

  Across the painted colonnades

  Among the terra cotta fawns

  Among the potted palms, the lawns,

  The cigarettes and serenades

  5

  Here’s the comedian again

  With broad dogmatic vest, and nose

  Nose that interrogates the stars,

  Impressive, sceptic, scarlet nose;

  The most expressive, real of men,

  10

  A jellyfish impertinent,

  A jellyfish without repose.

  Leaning across the orchestra

  Just while he ponders, legs apart,

  His belly sparkling and immense:

  15

  It’s all philosophy and art.

  Nose that interrogates the stars

  Interrogates the audience

  Who still continue in suspense

  <

  [Commentary I 1107–10 · Textual History II 572]

  Who are so many entities

  20

  Inside a ring of lights!

  Here’s one who has the world at rights

  Here�
�s one who gets away with it

  By simple spreading of the toes,

  A self-embodied rôle, his soul

  25

  Concentred in his vest and nose.

  II

  Each with a skirt just down to the ancle

  Everybody is under age

  Three on a side and one in the centre

  (Who would venture to be a dissenter)

  5

  Hello people!

  People, hello!

  Just while they linger shaking a finger

  Perched on stools in the middle of the stage:—

  ‘We’ve started out to take a walk

  10

  Each in a simple hat and gown,

  Seven little girls run away from school

  Now for a peek about the town.

  Here’s a street car—let’s jump in

  Oh see the soldiers—let’s descend.

  15

  When you’re out for an afternoon

  Find somebody with money to spend.

  But we’re perplexed.

  Hello people!

  Yes indeed we’re fearfully vexed;

  20

  People, hello!

  In trying to construe this text:

  “Where shall we go to next?”’

  [Commentary I 1110–11 · Textual History II 572]

  III

  If you’re walking down the avenue,

  Five o’clock in the afternoon,

  I may meet you

  Very likely greet you

  5

  Show you that I know you

  If you’re walking up Broadway

  Under the light of the silvery moon,

  You may find me

  All the girls behind me,

  10

  Euphorion of the modern time

 

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