by T. S. Eliot
Postman, propel thy feet II 160
The Practical Cat I 301
A Practical Possum I 299
Preludes I 15
A Proclamation I 298
Prufrock’s Pervigilium II 316
Put on your old grey corset II 188
Rannoch, by Glencoe I 147
Red river, red river I 145
Rhapsody on a Windy Night I 18
Richards & Roberts were two merry men II 201
ROAR Podesta ROAR, like any efficient druid, shanachie or scop II 256
Romeo, grand sérieux, to importune I 234
The Rum Tum Tugger II 10
Second Caprice in North Cambridge I 235
Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets II 316
… She haunted many a low resort I 306
She lay very still in bed with stubborn eyes I 268
Silence I 243
Skimbleshanks: The Railway Cat II 29
Sleeping Together I 317
Sleeping together includes a little waking I 317
So through the evening, through the violet air I 272
Son of Man, behold with thine eyes, and hear with thine ears I 173
Song (‘If space and time, as sages say’) I 223
Song (‘The golden foot I may not kiss or clutch’) I 284
Song (‘The moonflower opens to the moth’) I 233
Song (‘When we came home across the hill’) I 231
A Song for Simeon I 103
The Song of the Jellicles II 12
Speaking Piece, or Plum for Reciters II 196
Spleen I 239
Stand on the highest pavement of the stair I 28
Standing upon the shore of all we know I 227
Stands there, complete I 243
Stone, bronze, stone, steel, stone, oakleaves, horses’ heels I 131
Suite Clownesque I 249
Sunday: this satisfied procession I 239
Suppressed Complex I 268
Sweeney Agonistes I 113
Sweeney Among the Nightingales I 51
Sweeney Erect I 36
Take, postman, take your little skiff II 156
That bird wych in the dark time of the yeerë II 288
The August wind is shambling down the street I 239
The broad-backed hippopotamus I 43
The Chair she sat in, like a burnished throne I 58
The children who explored the brook and found I 217
The Cook who serv’d them Pork and Beans II 260
The Dove dove down an oyster Dive II 266
The Eagle soars in the summit of Heaven I 153
The Elephant at forty-nine II 217
The engine hammered and hummed I 274
The Flagship of Columbo’s Fleet II 260
The girl who mounted in the omnibus I 267
The golden foot I may not kiss or clutch I 284
The gourmet cat was of course Cumberleylaude I 315
The inhabitants of Hampstead have silk hats I 281
The Jim Jum Bears are at their Tricks I 302
The ladies who are interested in Assyrian art I 267
The lady of the porcelain department I 268
The little negro girl who lives across the alley I 241
The long light shakes across the lake I 142
The mind was six feet deep in a I 273
The moonflower opens to the moth I 233
The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter II 5
The Outlook gives an interview I 260
The Pekes and the Pollicles, everyone knows II 18
The Practical Cat goes up the flues I 301
The readers of the Boston Evening Transcript I 22
The river’s tent is broken; the last fingers of leaf I 62
The Rum Tugger is a Curious Cat II 10
The sage will refrain from sitting in with Archbishops II 194
The sailor, attentive to the chart or to the sheets I 340
The smoke that gathers blue and sinks I 258
The songsters of the air repair I 141
The sudden unexpected gift II 198
The tiger in the tiger-pit I 149
The Wedding Guest Here Beat his Breast II 261
The Whale that leapt on Bredon II 185
The wind sprang up at four o’clock I 140
The winter evening settles down I 15
The Word of the LORD came unto me, saying I 161
There are dogs out of every nation I 303
There are plenty of folk with fantastical notions I 288
There are several attitudes towards Christmas I 109
There are those who would build the Temple I 164
There’s a whisper down the line at 11.39 II 29
There’s No One Left to Press my Pants II 153
There was a jolly tinker came across the sea II 285
There was a young girl of Siberia II 287
There was a young lady named Lu II 149
There was a young lady named Ransome II 286
They are rattling breakfast plates in basement kitchens I 21
This charm of vacant lots! I 235
This Lion which I have pourtrayed II 170
Those are pearls that were his eyes. See! I 286
Three Sonnets II 225
Thus your fathers were made I 158
Time present and time past I 179
Tired I 280
‘’Tis WUX that makes the world go round II 268
To the Class of 1905 I 227
To Helen I 271
To the Indians who Died in Africa I 216
To Walter de la Mare I 217
To whom I owe the leaping delight I 219
Translation into English of ‘Verses for the Coot’ II 231
Tristan and Isolde I 236
Tristan Corbière I 279
The Triumph of Bullshit I 252
Triumphal March I 131
Twelve o’clock I 18
ULYSSES, in his age, had tales to tell I 308
Under the bronze leaves a colt was foaled II 83
UP BOYS AND AT ’EM II 251
Upon those stifling August nights I 262
Usk I 146
A Valedictory I 292
Vers pour la Foulque II 229
VERSES To Honour and Magnify Sir Geoffrey Faber Kt. I 313
Virginia I 145
Was it a morning or an afternoon I 256
The Waste Land I 53
The Waste Land: An Editorial Composite I 323
We are the hollow men I 81
We fear’d that we had bitch’d him quite I 644
We hibernate among the bricks I 260
We turn the corner of the street I 253
Webster was much possessed by death I 47
Wee Dolly Sayers II 197
The Whale and the Elephant: A Fable II 217
Whan Cam Ye Fra the Kirk? II 171
What O! Epitaff II 178
What seas what shores what grey rocks and what islands I 107
What the Thunder said I 68
What was he doing, the Great God Wux? II 258
When icicles hang by the wall II 193
When Mr. Apollinax visited the United States I 25
When my beloved stands tall and naked I 318
When the flowering nettle’s in blossom II 211
When we came home across the hill I 231
Where Castleawray’s froonin’ peaks II 171
While all the East was weaving red with gray I 231
While you were absent in the lavatory I 271
Whispers of Immortality I 47
Who walked between the violet and the violet I 92
Within the yellow ring of flame I 262
You have seen the house built, you have seen it adorned I 175
You ought to know Mr. Mistoffelees! II 21
Your cablegram arrived too late II 201
You’ve read of several kinds of Cat II 32
About the Authors
> THOMAS STEARNS ELIOT was born in St Louis, Missouri, in 1888. He settled in England in 1915 and published his first book of poems in 1917. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948. Eliot died in 1965.
CHRISTOPHER RICKS is Co-Director, with Archie Burnett, of the Editorial Institute at Boston University. His publications on Eliot include T. S. Eliot and Prejudice (1988), Inventions of the March Hare: Poems 1909–1917 (1996), and Decisions and Revisions in T. S. Eliot (the Panizzi Lectures, 2002), together with True Friendship: Geoffrey Hill, Anthony Hecht and Robert Lowell Under the Sign of Eliot and Pound (2007).
JIM McCUE is the author of Edmund Burke and Our Present Discontents (1997) and editor of the Penguin Selected Poems of Arthur Hugh Clough (1991). For fifteen years he worked for The Times, where he wrote the Bibliomane column. His imprint, the Foundling Press, began with the first separate publication of T. S. Eliot’s Eeldrop and Appleplex, and has printed for the first time writings by Alexander Pope, Ben Jonson, Henry James and A. E. Housman.
By the Same Author
By T. S. Eliot
THE COMPLETE POEMS AND PLAYS
verse
COLLECTED POEMS 1909–1962
PRUFROCK AND OTHER OBSERVATIONS
THE WASTE LAND AND OTHER POEMS
FOUR QUARTETS
SELECTED POEMS
THE WASTE LAND:
A Facsimile and Transcript of the Original Drafts
edited by Valerie Eliot
INVENTIONS OF THE MARCH HARE:
Poems 1909–1917
edited by Christopher Ricks
THE ARIEL POEMS
THE WASTE LAND
OLD POSSUM’S BOOK OF PRACTICAL CATS
plays
MURDER IN THE CATHEDRAL
THE FAMILY REUNION
THE COCKTAIL PARTY
THE CONFIDENTIAL CLERK
THE ELDER STATESMAN
literary criticism
THE SACRED WOOD
SELECTED ESSAYS
THE USE OF POETRY AND THE USE OF CRITICISM
TO CRITICIZE THE CRITIC
ON POETRY AND POETS
SELECTED PROSE OF T. S. ELIOT
edited by Frank Kermode
THE COMPLETE PROSE OF T. S. ELIOT: THE CRITICAL EDITION
Volume 1: Apprentice Years, 1905–1918
edited by Jewel Spears Brooker and Ronald Schuchard
Volume 2: The Perfect Critic, 1919–1926
edited by Anthony Cuda and Ronald Schuchard
social criticism
NOTES TOWARDS THE DEFINITION OF CULTURE
letters
THE LETTERS OF T. S. ELIOT
Volume 1: 1898–1922
Volume 2: 1923–1925
edited by Valerie Eliot and Hugh Haughton
Volume 3: 1926–1927
Volume 4: 1928–1929
Volume 5: 1930–1931
Volume 6: 1932–1933
edited by Valerie Eliot and John Haffenden
Copyright
First published in 2015
by Faber & Faber Ltd
Bloomsbury House
74–77 Great Russell Street
London WC1B 3DA
This ebook edition first published in 2015
All rights reserved
All writings by T. S. Eliot © Set Copyrights Limited 2015
Introduction, commentary and editorial material
© Christopher Ricks and Jim McCue 2015
The right of Christopher Ricks and Jim McCue to be identified as editors of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly
ISBN 978–0–571–3 2941–0