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