The Poems of T. S. Eliot Volume I

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The Poems of T. S. Eliot Volume I Page 23

by Thomas Stearns Eliot, Christopher Ricks


  London so fair.

  We will build London

  Bright in dark air,

  5

  With new bricks and mortar

  Beside the Thames bord

  Queen of Island and Water

  A House of our Lord.

  A Church for us all and work for us all

  10

  And God’s world for us all even unto this last.

  Dwellings for all men

  Churches for all

  Shall the fruit fall, then

  By the waste wall?

  15

  And shall the fruit fall then

  The harvest be waste

  When the Saviour of all men

  Our sowing has graced?

  A Church for us all and work for us all

  20

  And God’s world for us all even unto this last.

  <

  [Commentary I 1190–92 · Textual History II 598–99]

  Shall arms be useless

  Fingers unbent

  Effort be fruitless

  Money misspent?

  25

  We build the new towers

  And raise the new shrine

  In this London of ours

  Of yours and of mine.

  A Church for us all and work for us all

  30

  And God’s world for us all even unto this last.

  Mr. Pugstyles: The Elegant Pig

  There are plenty of folk with fantastical notions

  Of foreign bred pigs which our village disdains;

  With their hairy wild Irish, their little French cochons,

  Their bloated Westphalians, and burly blond Danes.

  5

  I says of all such, pitch ’em into the ocean,

  For if you touch pitch, why it only defiles:

  There is only one pig what deserves our devotion—

  Our Worcestershire heavyweight, Mr. Pugstyles.

  Mr. Pugstyles, Mr. Pugstyles,

  10

  What a wonderful pig is our Mr. Pugstyles.

  From the tips of his ears to the ends of his pedals

  He’s enough to make all other champions despair.

  He takes the blue ribbons, he takes the gold medals

  At all the stock shows and our grand county fair.

  15

  Other counties have schemers, contrivers and plotters;

  Their underbred swine only merit our smiles:

  For the curve of his chaps and the trim of his trotters

  Proclaim the perfections of Mr. Pugstyles.

  Mr. Pugstyles, Mr. Pugstyles,

  20

  Our Worcestershire heavyweight, Mr. Pugstyles.

  >

  [Commentary I 1192–93 · Textual History II 599–600]

  Not at Highbury Barn, or in sweet Maida Vale,

  Or at shady Nine Elms can such porkers be seen;

  Not at rural Chalk Farm, or remote Notting Dale,

  Or where the cows graze along Camberwell Green.

  25

  No not in the Minories, not in Old Jewry,

  Not where the swine along Lothbury glide;

  Not in the sweet-smelling stys of Old Drury

  Or where the hogs roll down the lanes of Cheapside

  Can you find such a pig

  30

  No not such a pig

  As our Worcestershire heavyweight, Mr. Pugstyles.

  We had an election down our way last week,

  Which seems an unreasonable thing for to do;

  And some gentlemen come down from London to speak

  35

  And they talked and they talked and they talked their selves blue.

  They talked their selves hoarse till they hardly could croak.

  So we rushed to the Wheatsheaf, we rushed to the Boar,

  We rushed to the Angel, we rushed to the Oak,

  And we all had a pint, and a pint or two more,

  40

  Until suddenly somebody started to roar:

  ‘Mr. Pugstyles, Mr. Pugstyles,

  What a wonderful pig is our Mr. Pugstyles’.

  Then we laughed and we laughed till we thought we should choke,

  And we rushed from the Wheatsheaf, we rushed from the Boar,

  45

  We rushed from the Angel, we rushed from the Oak,

  Some come through the window and some through the door;

  We rushed down the street till we reached the town hall,

  All cheering until you could hear us for miles,

  And together we bust out to bellow and bawl:

  50

  ‘The man for our money is Mr. Pugstyles.

  Mr. Pugstyles, we want Pugstyles,

  We won’t have any member but Mr. Pugstyles’.

  <

  [Commentary I 1193 · Textual History II 601–602]

  So Mr. Pugstyles he received every vote

  And we chaired him, and give him a gallon of milk,

  55

  And a tall shiny hat, and a long taily coat

  And a shilling cigar and a necktie of silk.

  So now we live quiet, and leave well alone

  And ignore all those Parliament folk and their wiles.

  Let ’em mind their own business, we’ll manage our own,

  60

  While we’re represented by Mr. Pugstyles.

  Mr. Pugstyles, Mr. Pugstyles,

  Our Worcestershire heavyweight, Mr. Pugstyles.

  Bellegarde

  Leaping pleasure passes tunefully,

  Is medecined mournfully,

  Follows futility, greedily grasped;

  Pleasure, not only, not of lushness:

  5

  Pleasure of vanity, imagination

  Self-conceitfulness, greedily grasped,

  Lust were more real, some thing apprehensible,

  Held in the hand, matchless a moment,

  Fades fast, perishes in impotence. Light lives

  10

  Slip from fingers slip

  When freely fingered.

  What strange apparition presents itself.

  All men have their ghosts from the past.

  And some are more unwelcome than this

  15

  Which has a silken smell of jollity.

  [Commentary I 1193–94 · Textual History II 602]

  The Anniversary

  It is not right for likes of me

  To speak upon a jubilee

  Occasion of solemnity.

  I have no skill of noble phrase,

  5

  Nor am I practised in the ways

  Of poetry, like Mr. Masefield.

  When he writes about the King,

  His classic measures rock and swing

  And bump along like anything.

  10

  So having asked your pardon all,

  My present subject I’ll recall.

  I’d gladly drink a pt. of beer

  In honour of the Dr. here

  Or drain a glass of apple juice

  15

  Or anything you might produce:

  There’s nothing that I would refuse

  For wishing him the best of health

  And peace of mind, and moderate wealth.

  So take your pipkins, panikins or firkins

  20

  While I propose the Toast of DOCTOR PERKINS.

  [Commentary I 1195 · Textual History II 602–603]

  A Valedictory

  Forbidding Mourning: to the Lady of the House.

  In springtime, when the year was new,

  The morning grass was fresh with dew;

  In autumn’s season of regret

  The morning flowers are moister yet

  5

  When now the tardy rose appears,

  It sparkles, not with dew, but tears;

  Its head is bent with patient grief;

  There runs a shudder through the leaf.

  The violas and hollyhocks

  10<
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  Have now put off their coloured frocks.

  The zinnia and marigold

  Shall go to join beneath the mould

  The tulip and the daffodil.

  But on the wall there quivers still

  15

  A tear within the lonely eye

  Of Clematis Jackmanii.

  The myosotis blue proclaim

  With colour shrill, their English name;

  And still the robin tries to sing

  20

  And cheat the winter into spring.

  —

  O long procession, happy flowers,

  That passed through spring and summer hours,

  Eager to blossom, and to try

  To win approval, and to die,

  25

  With grateful knowledge, that they grew

  To greet the eyes of one who knew

  Their ways and needs in every kind,

  And when to prune, and when to bind

  And when to cut and when to move,

  30

  With tender skill inspired by love.

  [Commentary I 1195–96 · Textual History II 603–604]

  —

  O happy flowers, that have gone

  Quietly, to oblivion,

  And with your beauty have repaid

  The hand that trimmed, and trained, and sprayed.

  35

  O happy stems, that not resent

  The winter’s long imprisonment;

  O happy roots, that live beneath

  The calm impertinence of death.

  When the revolving year shall bring

  40

  The sweet deception of the spring,

  Dare you put on your gaudy jerkins,

  Unsupervised by Mrs. Perkins?

  —

  We often think that man alone

  Remembers in the singing bone.

  45

  ‘Green earth forgets’: but I surmise

  That gardens have long memories;

  Like houses, have familiar ghosts

  Of dear and hospitable hosts.

  Laughter and happiness and grief

  50

  Revive within the budding leaf.

  Houses remember: since you came,

  Nothing in Campden is the same.

  Objects inanimate will yearn

  Inaudibly, for your return,

  55

  And human wishes shall be full

  Of aspirations audible,

  Which, ratified from hour to hour,

  Possess, we hope, magnetic power.

  [Commentary I 1197 · Textual History II 604]

  Pollicle Dogs and Jellicle Cats

  I was lunching one day at The Princess Louise,

  When I passed some remark to a man in white spats

  Who had ordered a plate of fried gammon and peas,

  So we soon fell to talking of thisses and thats—

  5

  Such as Pollicle Dogs and Jellicle Cats.

  I have been, he confided, a jack of all trades,

  A true rolling stone that has gathered no moss,

  I have seen much of life, in its various shades,

  And the fat and the lean, and the profit and loss;

  10

  I have done everything and I’ve been everywhere,

  (I’m at present an agent for small furnished flats)—

  But the one thing that’s made life worth while, I declare,

  Is Pollicle Dogs and Jellicle Cats.

  I have been, he continued, involved with the Turf

  15

  In the work of Accountant, in quite a small way,

  I invented an excellent specific for scurf,

  I bought second-hand goods, and I once wrote a play;

  I have acted as guide, on a Levantine Tour,

  And at one time I travelled (from Luton) in hats:

  20

  And for all my misfortunes I’ve found but one cure—

  And that’s Pollicle Dogs and Jellicle Cats.

  Now my sister, for instance, who lives in the hills

  That lie on the border of Shropshire and Wales,

  In a comfortable house where her husband fulfils

  25

  His vocation of retail purveyor of ales,

  She says, and for me I’ve no reason to doubt

  Her opinion, repeated in dozens of chats—

  She says there is one thing she can’t do without

  And that’s Pollicle Dogs and Jellicle Cats.

  >

  [Commentary I 1197–98 · Textual History II 604–605]

  30

  And my brother, for instance, who lives in the plains

  That lie on the border of Surrey and Kent,

  In a house newly built and with adequate drains,

  You would be quite surprised to know how much he spent

  On that house—he has actually had to employ

  35

  Two men snaring rabbits and two catching rats—

  He says, there is nothing that he can enjoy

  Like Pollicle Dogs and Jellicle Cats.

  Now my sister, of whom I have told you before,

  Is musically gifted, can sing like a bird,

  40

  She can learn any tune and can read any score,

  She can sing any song that you ever have heard.

  I have never known anyone had such an ear,

  And she never goes wrong on the sharps or the flats:

  She says, there are no voices so pleasant to hear

  45

  As of Pollicle Dogs and Jellicle Cats.

  And my brother, of whom you have just heard me speak,

  Is a talented artist, I mean amateur;

  He only has time at the end of the week,

  But his portraits have made a considerable stir.

  50

  He can sketch you, in no time, almost anybody,

  From Lady Godiva to Ingoldsby Oddie—

  He can draw like Italians, or Frenchmen, or Dutch,

  But prefers to draw people with whiskers and hats:

  And he says, there’s no subject that suits him so much

  55

  As Pollicle Dogs and Jellicle Cats.

  Well, I said very quickly, that’s quite understood,

  So now let me order a small glass of port—

  It will set your tongue wagging, and do your heart good,

  (Any port in a storm, as a final resort):

  60

  Besides, there’s a question I now wish to put,

  Though I know what is what, and I know that is that.

  What you’ve said is exceedingly curious. But

  What’s a Pollicle Dog? and a Jellicle Cat?

  [Commentary I 1198 · Textual History II 605]

  Well at that he turned round with a look of surprise,

  65

  As much as to say, Well now what about that?

  Do I actually see with my own very eyes

  A man who’s not heard of a Jellicle Cat?

  And a man who’s not heard of a Pollicle Dog

  Can’t know enough even to fall off a log—

  70

  Well, he said, at the worst there is hope for you yet;

  It’s exceedingly lucky for you that we met.

  If you do not object to my talking in verse—

  Not at all, I replied, I enjoy it of all things,

  It’s a good way to put either large things or small things;

  75

  There is nothing like poetry for real monologues—

  So with that he began

  ABOUT POLLICLE DOGS.

  [Commentary I 1198–99 · Textual History II 605–606]

  The Country Walk

  An Epistle, to John Hayward Esqre., suggested by certain experiences of the Author, in the Countryside of the West of England, and set down after parting from Canon Tissington Tatlow, at the corner of Lime Street and Fenchurch Street.

  Of all the bea
sts that God allows

  In England’s green and pleasant land

  I most of all dislike the Cows.

  Their ways I do not understand.

  5

  It puzzles me why they should stare

  At me, who am so innocent;

  Their stupid gaze is hard to bear—

  It’s positively truculent.

  I’m very inconspicuous

  10

  And scarlet ties I never wear;

  I’m not a London Transport Bus

  And yet at me they always stare.

  You may reply, to fear a Cow

  Is Cowardice the rustic scorns:

  15

  But still your reason must allow

  That I am weak, and she has horns.

  But most I’m terrified when walking

  With country dames in brogues and tweeds,

  Who will persist in hearty talking

  20

  And stopping to discuss the breeds.

  To country people Cows are mild

  And flee from any stone they throw,

  But I’m a timid City Child,

  As all the cattle seem to know.

  25

  But when in lanes alone I stroll,

  O then in vain their horns are tossed,

  In vain their bloodshot eyes they roll,

  Of me they shall not make their boast.

  Beyond the wall, or five-barred gate,

  30

  My sober wishes never stray;

  For me their deadly prongs may wait,

  But I can always run away!

  Or I could take sanctuary

  In any oak or apple tree.

  T. S. Eliot

  6. xii. 36

  [Commentary I 1199 · Textual History II 606]

  I am asked by my friend, the Man in White Spats

  I am asked by my friend, the Man in White Spats—

  Who, to my way of thinking, has nothing to do

  But attend to the horrible sharps and the flats

  Of his Budgerigars and his prize Cockatoo,

  5

  But who still has one feature we may call redeeming

  (I’ve observed him quite closely and know it is true),

  And which briefly and shortly is this: to all seeming

 

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