Sweeney among the Nightingales by T. S. Eliot
APENECK SWEENEY spreads his knees Letting his arms hang down to laugh, The zebra stripes along his jaw Swelling to maculate giraffe. The circles of the stormy moon Slide westward toward the River Plate, Death and the Raven drift above And Sweeney guards the hornèd gate. Gloomy Orion and the Dog Are veiled; and hushed […]
Rhapsody on a Windy Night by T. S. Eliot
TWELVE o’clock. Along the reaches of the street Held in a lunar synthesis, Whispering lunar incantations Dissolve the floors of memory And all its clear relations Its divisions and precisions, Every street lamp that I pass Beats like a fatalistic drum, And through the spaces of the dark Midnight shakes the memory As a madman […]
Preludes by T. S. Eliot
I THE WINTER evening settles down With smell of steaks in passageways. Six o’clock. The burnt-out ends of smoky days. And now a gusty shower wraps The grimy scraps Of withered leaves about your feet And newspapers from vacant lots; The showers beat On broken blinds and chimney-pots, And at the corner of the street […]
Portrait of a Lady by T. S. Eliot
Thou hast committed— Fornication: but that was in another country, And besides, the wench is dead. The Jew of Malta. I AMONG the smoke and fog of a December afternoon You have the scene arrange itself—as it will seem to do— With “I have saved this afternoon for you”; And four wax candles in the […]
Old Deuteronomy by T. S. Eliot
Old Deuteronomy’s lived a long time; He’s a Cat who has lived many lives in succession. He was famous in proverb and famous in rhyme A long while before Queen Victoria’s accession. Old Deuteronomy’s buried nine wives And more–I am tempted to say, ninety-nine; And his numerous progeny prospers and thrives And the village is […]
Mungojerrie And Rumpelteazer by T. S. Eliot
Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer were a very notorious couple of cats. As knockabout clown, quick-change comedians, tight-rope walkers and acrobats They had extensive reputation. They made their home in Victoria Grove– That was merely their centre of operation, for they were incurably given to rove. They were very well know in Cornwall Gardens, in Launceston Place […]
Mr. Mistoffelees by T. S. Eliot
You ought to know Mr. Mistoffelees! The Original Conjuring Cat– (There can be no doubt about that). Please listen to me and don’t scoff. All his Inventions are off his own bat. There’s no such Cat in the metropolis; He holds all the patent monopolies For performing suprising illusions And creating eccentric confusions. At prestidigitation […]
Mr. Eliot’s Sunday Morning Service by T. S. Eliot
Look, look, master, here comes two religious caterpillars. The Jew of Malta. POLYPHILOPROGENITIVE The sapient sutlers of the Lord Drift across the window-panes. In the beginning was the Word. In the beginning was the Word. Superfetation of , And at the mensual turn of time Produced enervate Origen. A painter of the Umbrian school Designed […]
Mr. Apollinax by T. S. Eliot
WHEN Mr. Apollinax visited the United States His laughter tinkled among the teacups. I thought of Fragilion, that shy figure among the birch-trees, And of Priapus in the shrubbery Gaping at the lady in the swing. In the palace of Mrs. Phlaccus, at Professor Channing-Cheetah’s He laughed like an irresponsible foetus. His laughter was submarine […]
Morning at the Window by T. S. Eliot
THEY are rattling breakfast plates in basement kitchens, And along the trampled edges of the street I am aware of the damp souls of housemaids Sprouting despondently at area gates. The brown waves of fog toss up to me Twisted faces from the bottom of the street, And tear from a passer-by with muddy skirts […]
Mr. Apollinax by T. S. Eliot
WHEN Mr. Apollinax visited the United States His laughter tinkled among the teacups. I thought of Fragilion, that shy figure among the birch-trees, And of Priapus in the shrubbery Gaping at the lady in the swing. In the palace of Mrs. Phlaccus, at Professor Channing-Cheetah’s He laughed like an irresponsible foetus. His laughter was submarine […]
Morning at the Window by T. S. Eliot
THEY are rattling breakfast plates in basement kitchens, And along the trampled edges of the street I am aware of the damp souls of housemaids Sprouting despondently at area gates. The brown waves of fog toss up to me Twisted faces from the bottom of the street, And tear from a passer-by with muddy skirts […]
Lune de Miel by T. S. Eliot
ILS ont vu les Pays-Bas, ils rentrent à Terre Haute; Mais une nuit d’été, les voici à Ravenne, A l’aise entre deux draps, chez deux centaines de punaises; La sueur aestivale, et une forte odeur de chienne. Ils restent sur le dos écartant les genoux De quatre jambes molles tout gonflées de morsures. On relève […]
Le Directeur by T. S. Eliot
MALHEUR à la malheureuse Tamise Qui coule si preès du Spectateur. Le directeur Conservateur Du Spectateur Empeste la brise. Les actionnaires Réactionnaires Du Spectateur Conservateur Bras dessus bras dessous Font des tours A pas de loup. Dans un égout Une petite fille En guenilles Camarde Regarde Le directeur Du Spectateur Conservateur Et crève d’amour. ————— […]
La Figlia che Piange by T. S. Eliot
O quam te memorem virgo… STAND on the highest pavement of the stair— Lean on a garden urn— Weave, weave the sunlight in your hair— Clasp your flowers to you with a pained surprise— Fling them to the ground and turn With a fugitive resentment in your eyes: But weave, weave the sunlight in your […]
Journey Of The Magi by T. S. Eliot
‘A cold coming we had of it, Just the worst time of the year For a journey, and such a journey: The ways deep and the weather sharp, The very dead of winter.’ And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory, Lying down in the melting snow. There were times we regretted The summer palaces on slopes, […]
Hysteria by T. S. Eliot
As she laughed I was aware of becoming involved in her laughter and being part of it, until her teeth were only accidental stars with a talent for squad-drill. I was drawn in by short gasps, inhaled at each momentary recovery, lost finally in the dark caverns of her throat, bruised by the ripple of […]
Gus: The Theatre Cat by T. S. Eliot
Gus is the Cat at the Theatre Door. His name, as I ought to have told you before, Is really Asparagus. That’s such a fuss To pronounce, that we usually call him just Gus. His coat’s very shabby, he’s thin as a rake, And he suffers from palsy that makes his paw shake. Yet he […]
Growltiger’s Last Stand by T. S. Eliot
GROWLTIGER was a Bravo Cat, who lived upon a barge; In fact he was the roughest cat that ever roamed at large. From Gravesend up to Oxford he pursued his evil aims, Rejoicing in his title of “The Terror of the Thames.” His manners and appearance did not calculate to please; His coat was torn […]
Gerontion by T. S. Eliot
Thou hast nor youth nor age But as it were an after dinner sleep Dreaming of both. HERE I am, an old man in a dry month, Being read to by a boy, waiting for rain. I was neither at the hot gates Nor fought in the warm rain Nor knee deep in the salt […]
Four Quartets 4: Little Gidding by T. S. Eliot
I Midwinter spring is its own season Sempiternal though sodden towards sundown, Suspended in time, between pole and tropic. When the short day is brightest, with frost and fire, The brief sun flames the ice, on pond and ditches, In windless cold that is the heart’s heat, Reflecting in a watery mirror A glare that […]
Four Quartets 3: The Dry Salvages by T. S. Eliot
(The Dry Salvages—presumably les trois sauvages—is a small group of rocks, with a beacon, off the N.E. coast of Cape Ann, Massachusetts. Salvages is pronounced to rhyme with assuages. Groaner: a whistling buoy.) I I do not know much about gods; but I think that the river Is a strong brown god—sullen, untamed and intractable, […]
Four Quartets 2: East Coker by T. S. Eliot
I In my beginning is my end. In succession Houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended, Are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place Is an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass. Old stone to new building, old timber to new fires, Old fires to ashes, and ashes to the earth Which is […]
Four Quartets 1: Burnt Norton by T. S. Eliot
I Time present and time past Are both perhaps present in time future, And time future contained in time past. If all time is eternally present All time is unredeemable. What might have been is an abstraction Remaining a perpetual possibility Only in a world of speculation. What might have been and what has been […]
Dans le Restaurant by T. S. Eliot
LE garçon délabré qui n’a rien à faire Que de se gratter les doigts et se pencher sur mon épaule: “Dans mon pays il fera temps pluvieux, Du vent, du grand soleil, et de la pluie; C’est ce qu’on appelle le jour de lessive des gueux.” (Bavard, baveux, à la croupe arrondie, Je te prie, […]
Cousin Nancy by T. S. Eliot
MISS NANCY ELLICOTT Strode across the hills and broke them, Rode across the hills and broke them— The barren New England hills— Riding to hounds Over the cow-pasture. Miss Nancy Ellicott smoked And danced all the modern dances; And her aunts were not quite sure how they felt about it, But they knew that it […]
Conversation Galante by T. S. Eliot
I OBSERVE: “Our sentimental friend the moon! Or possibly (fantastic, I confess) It may be Prester John’s balloon Or an old battered lantern hung aloft To light poor travellers to their distress.” She then: “How you digress!” And I then: “Someone frames upon the keys That exquisite nocturne, with which we explain The night and […]
Bustopher Jones: The Cat About Town by T. S. Eliot
Bustopher Jones is not skin and bones– In fact, he’s remarkably fat. He doesn’t haunt pubs–he has eight or nine clubs, For he’s the St. James’s Street Cat! He’s the Cat we all greet as he walks down the street In his coat of fastidious black: No commonplace mousers have such well-cut trousers Or such […]
Burbank with a Baedeker: Bleistein with a Cigar by T. S. Eliot
Tra-la-la-la-la-la-laire—nil nisi divinum stabile est; caetera fumus—the gondola stopped, the old palace was there, how charming its grey and pink—goats and monkeys, with such hair too!—so the countess passed on until she came through the little park, where Niobe presented her with a cabinet, and so departed. BURBANK crossed a little bridge Descending at a […]
Aunt Helen by T. S. Eliot
MISS HELEN SLINGSBY was my maiden aunt, And lived in a small house near a fashionable square Cared for by servants to the number of four. Now when she died there was silence in heaven And silence at her end of the street. The shutters were drawn and the undertaker wiped his feet— He was […]
Ash Wednesday by T. S. Eliot
I Because I do not hope to turn again Because I do not hope Because I do not hope to turn Desiring this man’s gift and that man’s scope I no longer strive to strive towards such things (Why should the agèd eagle stretch its wings?) Why should I mourn The vanished power of the […]
A Cooking Egg by T. S. Eliot
En l’an trentiesme do mon aage Que toutes mes hontes j’ay beues… PIPIT sate upright in her chair Some distance from where I was sitting; Views of the Oxford Colleges Lay on the table, with the knitting. Daguerreotypes and silhouettes, Here grandfather and great great aunts, Supported on the mantelpiece An Invitation to the Dance. […]
The Resignation by Thomas Chatterton
The Resignation by Thomas Chatterton O God, whose thunder shakes the sky, Whose eye this atom globe surveys, To thee, my only rock, I fly, Thy mercy in thy justice praise. The mystic mazes of thy will, The shadows of celestial light, Are past the pow’r of human skill,– But what th’ Eternal acts is […]
The Methodist by Thomas Chatterton
The Methodist by Thomas Chatterton Says Tom to Jack, ’tis very odd, These representatives of God, In color, way of life and evil, Should be so very like the devil. Jack, understand, was one of those, Who mould religion in the rose, A red hot methodist; his face Was full of puritanic grace, His loose […]
The Death of Nicou by Thomas Chatterton
The Death of Nicou by Thomas Chatterton On Tiber’s banks, Tiber, whose waters glide In slow meanders down to Gaigra’s side; And circling all the horrid mountain round, Rushes impetuous to the deep profound; Rolls o’er the ragged rocks with hideous yell; Collects its waves beneath the earth’s vast shell; There for a while in […]
The Copernican System by Thomas Chatterton
The Copernican System by Thomas Chatterton The Sun revolving on his axis turns, And with creative fire intensely burns; Impell’d by forcive air, our Earth supreme, Rolls with the planets round the solar gleam. First Mercury completes his transient year, Glowing, refulgent, with reflected glare; Bright Venus occupies a wider way, The early harbinger of […]
The Advice by Thomas Chatterton
The Advice by Thomas Chatterton Revolving in their destin’d sphere, The hours begin another year As rapidly to fly; Ah! think, Maria, (e’er in grey Those auburn tresses fade away So youth and beauty die. Tho’ now the captivating throng Adore with flattery and song, And all before you bow; Whilst unattentive to the strain, […]
Song from Aella by Thomas Chatterton
Song from Aella by Thomas Chatterton O SING unto my roundelay, O drop the briny tear with me; Dance no more at holyday, Like a running river be: My love is dead, Gone to his death-bed All under the willow-tree. Black his cryne as the winter night, White his rode as the summer snow, Red […]
Sly Dick by Thomas Chatterton
Sly Dick by Thomas Chatterton Sharp was the frost, the wind was high And sparkling stars bedeckt the sky Sly Dick in arts of cunning skill’d, Whose rapine all his pockets fill’d, Had laid him down to take his rest And soothe with sleep his anxious breast. ‘Twas thus a dark infernal sprite A native […]
Narva and Mored by Thomas Chatterton
Narva and Mored by Thomas Chatterton Recite the loves of Narva and Mored The priest of Chalma’s triple idol said. High from the ground the youthful warriors sprung, Loud on the concave shell the lances rung: In all the mystic mazes of the dance, The youths of Banny’s burning sands advance, Whilst the soft virgin […]