Be it winter or summer, in snow-boots or slippers,
At breakfast or luncheon, at dinner or tea:
‘And now,’ I says, ‘jist you ’and over them kippers.’
Montpelier Row
DE LA MARE delicate
China tea and porcelain
Matter-of-fact initiate
Leans against the window pane
5
Vista of Hanoverian trees
His right décor (take care!) which yet
The old enchanter, if he please
May change to haunt of marmoset
Amphisbaena, or ichneumon;
10
Dissolve the real, make real the dream:
Domestic, alien, kind, aloof—
One moment! and we have the proof
As down the far, invisible stream
There drifts, there drifts the visible swan.
[Commentary I 1212–13 · Textual History II 616]
NOTES
Line 1. The omission of punctuation makes it possible for the adjective to refer both backwards and forwards. V. Empson: Seven Types of Ambiguity. No mention of this type of ambiguity will be found in the work mentioned.
Line 5. Hanoverian. It is not assumed that all the trees were planted before the death of William IV, still less that the identical vista could be seen from this window in the eighteenth century. The trees represent, by a sort of metonymy, the effect of the total scene, both indoors and out of doors.
Line 9. For the habits of the amphisbaena, see a poem on this subject by A. E. Housman, published in a periodical of London University.
For the habits of the ichneumon, and its behaviour at windows, see The Crooked Man (in The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes).
The possible content of a single sonnet is so restricted, by the limitation to fourteen lines, that a series of sonnets may ensue.
Line 13. Stream is weak, but what can you do with Thames? It has no rhyme, for, if I mistake not, an A is too long and an E is too short. The only comparable vowel is the A in Pall Mall, which does not rhyme, and could not have been introduced into this sonnet anyway. The nearest rhyme is the name of the German town Ems, and if that is pronounced correctly, it is not the same vowel either. And Ems would have been still more remote from the subject than Pall Mall.
[Commentary I 1213–14 · Textual History II 616]
Let quacks, empirics, dolts debate
Let quacks, empirics, dolts debate
Let quacks, empirics, dolts debate
The quandaries of Church and State.
Let intellectuals address
The latest Cultural Congress.
5
Here is the true Contemplative,
Content to live—perhaps let live—
The Sage, disposed to sit and stare
With a vacant mind in a vacant square.
[Commentary I 1214–15 · Textual History II 616]
Inscriptions to Sir Geoffrey Faber on the occasion of his knighthood
AMAZ’D astronomers did late descry
AMAZ’D astronomers did late descry
A new great luminary in the sky.
Straight to the Queen the prompt petition came:
Would She be pleased to give this Star a Name?
5
‘Sir Geoffrey let it be’. Her word benign
The Heav’ns approved, and all the Muses Nine.
[Commentary I 1215–16 · Textual History II 617]
VERSES
To Honour and Magnify Sir Geoffrey Faber Kt.;
Preſented by Several
of his faithful Henchmen, Satellites & Feodaries
to mark the Occaſion of his Safe Return
together with his Good Lady
from the Antipodes & the more Tropick Parts of Africa.
For which Safe Return, and Delivery from all Perils
by Land, Sea & Air
We deſire to return Thanks to Divine Providence.
A Man ſo various that he ſeem’d to be
A ſcore of Crichtons in epitome;
Practiſ ’d in field of War and field of Sport,
Cunning to tame a Bull, or charm a Court;*
5
A Man of Letters whom we all Admire
As Chairman, and reſpect as Country Squire,
And, in the Space of one revolving Moon,
As ſcholar, poet, burſar and patroon,
Eximious in Adminiſtrative Skill,
10
Or ſkies to ſcan, or Compoſt-land to till.
The wondering World exclaim’d, in mild affright:
‘Should ſuch a noble Man be leſs than Knight?’
The ſwelling rumour thus to Windſor came,
And Lo! At laſt Sir Geoffrey is his Name.
* ‘Court’ Reference here is both to the St. Jameſ’s and to the Old Bailey.
Long may this Glass endure, and brim with wine
Long may this Glass endure, and brim with wine
To chant the honours of the Faber line
Sev’rally charactered amidst its quaint design
ANN, in whom bounteous Nature has conjoined
5
Genial creative with calm critic mind
RICHARD, whose subtile diplomatic arts
Uphold the Queen’s estate in foreign parts
THOMAS, whose penetrative eyes explore
The darkest secrets of hermetic lore
[Commentary I 1217–18 · Textual History II 618]
The gourmet cat was of course Cumberleylaude
The gourmet cat was of course Cumberleylaude,
Who did very little to earn his dinner and board,
Indeed, he was always out and about,
Patronising the haunts where he would find,
5
People are generous and nice and kind,
Serving good food to this culinary lout!
With care he chooses his place to dine,
And dresses accordingly, if he has time,
Tasting all that Neville Road offers,
10
With never a thought for anyone’s coffers!
The best is only fit for the best he opines,
When he wants salmon, or duck, or expensive French wines.
Until one day when he will find,
All of the doors closed and the windows blind.
Then monocle and cane he will have to discard
And realise that hunting isn’t so hard,
15
That mouse is tasty and starling sweet,
And that Neville Road is a bounteous street!
[Commentary I 1218 · Textual History II 618]
How the Tall Girl and I Play Together
I love a tall girl. When we stand face to face
She with nothing on and I with nothing on;
She in high heels and I in bare feet,
We can just touch nipple to nipple
5
Tingling and burning. Because she is a tall girl.
I love a tall girl. When she sits on my knee
She with nothing on, and I with nothing on,
I can just take her nipple in my lips
And stroke it with my tongue. Because she is a tall girl.
10
I love a tall girl. When we lie in bed
She on her back and I stretched upon her,
And our middle parts are busy with each other,
My toes play with her toes and my tongue with her tongue,
And all the parts are happy. Because she is a tall girl.
15
When my tall girl sits astraddle on my lap,
She with nothing on and I with nothing on
And our middle parts are about their business,
I can stroke her back and her long white legs
And both of us are happy. Because she is a tall girl.
20
I love a tall girl.
I have a tall girl.
I am glad she is not a small girl.
[Commentary I 1218–19 · Textual History II 618]
Sleeping Together
Sleeping together includes a little waking,
Waking for the joy of watching over the beloved,
Listening for the deep and regular breathing
That tells me she is sleeping.
5
My arm is round her naked body,
My hand is cupping her breast; her nipple
Pushes into the very centre of my palm
Which quivers with tenderness.
My fingers move softly below, to her navel
10
And touch the delicate down beneath her navel,
Coming to rest on the hair between her thighs.
The miracle of sleeping together is: Confidence
Why should my hand wake her? Even in her sleep
Unconscious but aware, she knows the hand that holds her,
Knows the fingers that caress her
[Commentary I 1219 · Textual History II 619]
How the Tall Girl’s Breasts Are
When my beloved stands tall and naked
Proud and rejoicing, not in her own beauty
But in the knowledge of the power of her beauty
To quicken my desire (as I stand erect before her
5
And quiver with the swelling of my concupiscence)
Her breasts look ripe and full
In their summer of perfection.
But when my beloved lies upon her back,
Her breasts wide apart look small and firm
10
And high, not ripe but as if still ripening
As they must have looked
When she was fifteen.
And when my beloved lies upon her side
Her breasts are close together, one lying on the other,
15
So that when I squeeze my hand between them
It is caught and held
A happy prisoner.
And when my beloved stands beside our bed
Leaning over me and I lie and look up at her,
20
Then her breasts are like ripe pears that dangle
Above my mouth
Which reaches up to take them.
[Commentary I 1219 · Textual History II 619]
Dedication II
No peevish winter wind shall chill
No sullen tropic sun shall wither
The love of two minds which are clear to each other
The adoration of two souls which revere each other
5
The desire of two bodies which adhere to each other.
To you I offer this dedication
In three words which for us are at one with each other:
Love adoration desire
Love seeketh not Itself to please
‘Love seeketh not Itself to please,
But feareth it give no delight
Dreadeth another’s loss of ease
And builds a Hell in Heaven’s despite.’
5
So sang a Pebble of the brook
Trodden with the Cattle’s feet.
But a little Clod of Clay
Warbled out these metres meet:
‘Love that seeketh not to please
10
And for the other has no care
But joys in taking its own ease
Builds a Heaven in Hell’s despair.’
[Commentary I 1219–20 · Textual History II 619]
The Waste Land: An Editorial Composite
For the genesis of The Waste Land, see Commentary headnote to the poem,
1. COMPOSITION.
This editorial composite is a 678-line reading text of the earliest available drafts of the various parts and passages of the poem. By showing TSE’s earliest surviving thoughts as a contrast to the published poem, it aims to illustrate how radically it changed during composition. The earliest surviving drafts are not all of the same stage of development (nor all compatible in a reading text), so this composite does not represent the poem at any particular moment.
In places, TSE’s sketches are so tentative that the earliest decipherable readings do not make continuous coherent sense and other readings have been preferred. Where an emendation has been made at the time of writing (such as an immediate deletion replaced on the same line rather than above or below), the emendation is followed and the deleted matter is recorded among the variants as 1st reading. Where a passage has been deleted and immediately redrafted on the same leaf, it is deemed preferable for the reading text to give only the redrafting rather than giving both versions one after the other or to give priority to the deleted draft and treat redrafting as a variant (this applies to the drafts of “Highbury bore me” WLFacs 50/51). Where the surrounding text exists only in a later continuous draft, to use the earliest possible sketch of the lines would mean alternating between different archaeological layers of text, so the continuous draft has been preferred (as in the case of “London, the swarming life you kill and breed”, 334–47, which has been taken from the continuous typescript ts3 rather than the earlier ms1).
All readings not given in WLComposite appear in the Textual History of the poem, along with readings of the three pre-publication typescripts not made by TSE, published texts, and two late manuscripts made by TSE.
Some of the earliest material in “the original manuscript” of The Waste Land, sent by TSE to John Quinn on 21 September 1922 had been drafted within autonomous poems or sketches. In her facsimile edition of the drafts (WLFacs), Valerie Eliot printed these after the five parts of The Waste Land and in the present edition they are printed among the “Uncollected Poems”. The likely positions of four of them as “Interludes” between the Parts of The Waste Land as TSE conceived it in 1921 are indicated within this editorial composite. It would, however, be impracticable to collate all of the miscellaneous materials as part of the textual history of The Waste Land on the grounds that TSE considered them to be part of “the original manuscript”. The interludes and the contributory drafts therefore all appear in the chronological sequence of “Uncollected Poems”. In common with the rest of that section, but unlike the text of WLComposite, they are given in their final form.
Line numbering for WLComposite is given in bold, with that of the published poem’s equivalent passages appearing in ordinary roman type. Throughout the Commentary and Textual History, references to this editorial composite text use the bold line numbers (1–678).
THE WASTE LAND.
By
T. S. Eliot.
“Did he live his life again in every detail of desire, temptation, and surrender during that supreme moment of complete knowledge? He cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision,—he cried out twice, a cry that was no more than a breath—
‘The horror! the horror!’”
CONRAD.
[Commentary I 588–93 · Textual History II 372]
HE DO THE POLICE IN DIFFERENT VOICES: Part I.
THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD.
First we had a couple of feelers down at Tom’s place,
There was old Tom, boiled to the eyes, blind,
(Don’t you remember that time after a dance,
Top hats and all, we and Silk Hat Harry,
5
And old Tom took us behind, brought out a bottle of fizz,
With old Jane, Tom’s wife; and we got Joe to sing
“I’m proud of all the Irish blood that’s in me,
“There’s not a man can say a word agin me”).
Then we had dinner in good form, and a couple of Bengal lights.
10
When we got into the show, up in Row A,
I tried to put my foot in the drum, and didn’t the girl squeal,
She never did take to me, a nice guy—but rough;
The next thing we were out in the street, Oh was it cold!
When will you be good? Blew in to the Opera Exchange,
15
Sopped up
some gin, sat in to the cork game,
Mr. Fay was there, singing “The Maid of the Mill”;
Then we thought we’d breeze along and take a walk.
Then we lost Steve.
(“I turned up an hour later down at Myrtle’s place.
20
What d’y’ mean, she says, at two o’clock in the morning,
I’m not in business here for guys like you;
We’ve only had a raid last week, I’ve been warned twice.
Sergeant, I said, I’ve kept a decent house for twenty years,
There’s three gents from the Buckingham Club upstairs now,
25
I’m going to retire and live on a farm, she says,
There’s no money in it now, what with the damage done,
And the reputation the place gets, on account of a few bar-flies,
I’ve kept a clean house for twenty years, she says,
And the gents from the Buckingham Club know they’re safe here;
30
You was well introduced, but this is the last of you.
Get me a woman, I said; you’re too drunk, she said,
But she gave me a bed, and a bath, and ham and eggs,
And now you go get a shave, she said; I had a good laugh,
Myrtle was always a good sport”).
The Poems of T. S. Eliot Volume I Page 25