The Poems of T. S. Eliot Volume I Read online

  [Commentary I 841–43 · Textual History II 459–60]

  V. Lines for Cuscuscaraway and Mirza Murad Ali Beg

  How unpleasant to meet Mr. Eliot!

  With his features of clerical cut,

  And his brow so grim

  And his mouth so prim

  5

  And his conversation, so nicely

  Restricted to What Precisely

  And If and Perhaps and But.

  How unpleasant to meet Mr. Eliot!

  With a bobtail cur

  10

  In a coat of fur

  And a porpentine cat

  And a wopsical hat:

  How unpleasant to meet Mr. Eliot!

  (Whether his mouth be open or shut.)

  [Commentary I 843–47 · Textual History II 460–62]

  Landscapes

  *

  I. New Hampshire

  Children’s voices in the orchard

  Between the blossom- and the fruit-time:

  Golden head, crimson head,

  Between the green tip and the root.

  5

  Black wing, brown wing, hover over;

  Twenty years and the spring is over;

  To-day grieves, to-morrow grieves,

  Cover me over, light-in-leaves;

  Golden head, black wing,

  10

  Cling, swing,

  Spring, sing,

  Swing up into the apple-tree.

  [Commentary I 847–52 · Textual History II 463–64]

  II. Virginia

  Red river, red river,

  Slow flow heat is silence

  No will is still as a river

  Still. Will heat move

  5

  Only through the mocking-bird

  Heard once? Still hills

  Wait. Gates wait. Purple trees,

  White trees, wait, wait,

  Delay, decay. Living, living,

  10

  Never moving. Ever moving

  Iron thoughts came with me

  And go with me:

  Red river, river, river.

  [Commentary I 852 · Textual History II 465]

  III. Usk

  Do not suddenly break the branch, or

  Hope to find

  The white hart behind the white well.

  Glance aside, not for lance, do not spell

  5

  Old enchantments. Let them sleep.

  ‘Gently dip, but not too deep’,

  Lift your eyes

  Where the roads dip and where the roads rise

  Seek only there

  10

  Where the grey light meets the green air

  The hermit’s chapel, the pilgrim’s prayer.

  [Commentary I 852–53 · Textual History II 465–66]

  IV. Rannoch, by Glencoe

  Here the crow starves, here the patient stag

  Breeds for the rifle. Between the soft moor

  And the soft sky, scarcely room

  To leap or soar. Substance crumbles, in the thin air

  5

  Moon cold or moon hot. The road winds in

  Listlessness of ancient war,

  Languor of broken steel,

  Clamour of confused wrong, apt

  In silence. Memory is strong

  10

  Beyond the bone. Pride snapped,

  Shadow of pride is long, in the long pass

  No concurrence of bone.

  [Commentary I 853 · Textual History II 466]

  V. Cape Ann

  O quick quick quick, quick hear the song-sparrow,

  Swamp-sparrow, fox-sparrow, vesper-sparrow

  At dawn and dusk. Follow the dance

  Of the goldfinch at noon. Leave to chance

  5

  The Blackburnian warbler, the shy one. Hail

  With shrill whistle the note of the quail, the bob-white

  Dodging by bay-bush. Follow the feet

  Of the walker, the water-thrush. Follow the flight

  Of the dancing arrow, the purple martin. Greet

  10

  In silence the bullbat. All are delectable. Sweet sweet sweet

  But resign this land at the end, resign it

  To its true owner, the tough one, the sea-gull.

  The palaver is finished.

  [Commentary I 854–55 · Textual History II 467]

  Lines for an Old Man

  The tiger in the tiger-pit

  Is not more irritable than I.

  The whipping tail is not more still

  Than when I smell the enemy

  5

  Writhing in the essential blood

  Or dangling from the friendly tree.

  When I lay bare the tooth of wit

  The hissing over the archèd tongue

  Is more affectionate than hate,

  10

  More bitter than the love of youth,

  And inaccessible by the young.

  Reflected from my golden eye

  The dullard knows that he is mad.

  Tell me if I am not glad!

  [Commentary I 855–56 · Textual History II 467–68]

  Choruses from ‘The Rock’

  I

  The Eagle soars in the summit of Heaven,

  The Hunter with his dogs pursues his circuit.

  O perpetual revolution of configured stars,

  O perpetual recurrence of determined seasons,

  5

  O world of spring and autumn, birth and dying!

  The endless cycle of idea and action,

  Endless invention, endless experiment,

  Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness;

  Knowledge of speech, but not of silence;

  10

  Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word.

  All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance,

  All our ignorance brings us nearer to death,

  But nearness to death no nearer to GOD.

  Where is the Life we have lost in living?

  15

  Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?

  Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?

  The cycles of Heaven in twenty centuries

  Bring us farther from GOD and nearer to the Dust.

  I journeyed to London, to the timekept City,

  20

  Where the River flows, with foreign flotations.

  There I was told: we have too many churches,

  And too few chop-houses. There I was told:

  Let the vicars retire. Men do not need the Church

  In the place where they work, but where they spend their Sundays.

  25

  In the City, we need no bells:

  Let them waken the suburbs.

  I journeyed to the suburbs, and there I was told:

  We toil for six days, on the seventh we must motor

  To Hindhead, or Maidenhead.

  30

  If the weather is foul we stay at home and read the papers.

  In industrial districts, there I was told

  Of economic laws.

  In the pleasant countryside, there it seemed

  That the country now is only fit for picnics.

  35

  And the Church does not seem to be wanted

  In country or in suburb; and in the town

  Only for important weddings.

  [Commentary I 857–69 · Textual History II 469–70]

  CHORUS LEADER:

  Silence! and preserve respectful distance.

  For I perceive approaching

  40

  The Rock. Who will perhaps answer our doubtings.

  The Rock. The Watcher. The Stranger.

  He who has seen what has happened

  And who sees what is to happen.

  The Witness. The Critic. The Stranger.

  45

  The God-shaken, in whom is the truth inborn.

  Enter the ROCK, led by a BOY:

/>   THE ROCK:

  The lot of man is ceaseless labour,

  Or ceaseless idleness, which is still harder,

  Or irregular labour, which is not pleasant.

  I have trodden the winepress alone, and I know

  50

  That it is hard to be really useful, resigning

  The things that men count for happiness, seeking

  The good deeds that lead to obscurity, accepting

  With equal face those that bring ignominy,

  The applause of all or the love of none.

  55

  All men are ready to invest their money

  But most expect dividends.

  I say to you: Make perfect your will.

  I say: take no thought of the harvest,

  But only of proper sowing.

  >

  [Commentary I 870 · Textual History II 470]

  60

  The world turns and the world changes,

  But one thing does not change.

  In all of my years, one thing does not change.

  However you disguise it, this thing does not change:

  The perpetual struggle of Good and Evil.

  65

  Forgetful, you neglect your shrines and churches;

  The men you are in these times deride

  What has been done of good, you find explanations

  To satisfy the rational and enlightened mind.

  Second, you neglect and belittle the desert.

  70

  The desert is not remote in southern tropics,

  The desert is not only around the corner,

  The desert is squeezed in the tube-train next to you,

  The desert is in the heart of your brother.

  The good man is the builder, if he build what is good.

  75

  I will show you the things that are now being done,

  And some of the things that were long ago done,

  That you may take heart. Make perfect your will.

  Let me show you the work of the humble. Listen.

  The lights fade; in the semi-darkness the voices of WORKMEN are heard chanting.

  In the vacant places

  80

  We will build with new bricks

  There are hands and machines

  And clay for new brick

  And lime for new mortar

  Where the bricks are fallen

  85

  We will build with new stone

  Where the beams are rotten

  We will build with new timbers

  Where the word is unspoken

  We will build with new speech

  90

  There is work together

  A Church for all

  And a job for each

  Every man to his work.

  [Commentary I 870 · Textual History II 470–71]

  Now a group of WORKMEN is silhouetted against the dim sky. From farther away, they are answered by voices of the UNEMPLOYED.

  No man has hired us

  95

  With pocketed hands

  And lowered faces

  We stand about in open places

  And shiver in unlit rooms.

  Only the wind moves

  100

  Over empty fields, untilled

  Where the plough rests, at an angle

  To the furrow. In this land

  There shall be one cigarette to two men,

  To two women one half pint of bitter

  105

  Ale. In this land

  No man has hired us.

  Our life is unwelcome, our death

  Unmentioned in ‘The Times’.

  [Commentary I 870 · Textual History II 471]

  Chant of WORKMEN again.

  The river flows, the seasons turn

  110

  The sparrow and starling have no time to waste.

  If men do not build

  How shall they live?

  When the field is tilled

  And the wheat is bread

  115

  They shall not die in a shortened bed

  And a narrow sheet. In this street

  There is no beginning, no movement, no peace and no end

  But noise without speech, food without taste.

  Without delay, without haste

  120

  We would build the beginning and the end of this street.

  We build the meaning:

  A Church for all

  And a job for each

  Each man to his work.

  [Commentary I 870 · Textual History II 471]

  II

  Thus your fathers were made

  Fellow citizens of the saints, of the household of GOD, being built upon the foundation

  Of apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself the chief cornerstone.

  But you, have you built well, that you now sit helpless in a ruined house?

  5

  Where many are born to idleness, to frittered lives and squalid deaths, embittered scorn in honeyless hives,

  And those who would build and restore turn out the palms of their hands, or look in vain towards foreign lands for alms to be more or the urn to be filled.

  Your building not fitly framed together, you sit ashamed and wonder whether and how you may be builded together for a habitation of GOD in the Spirit, the Spirit which moved on the face of the waters like a lantern set on the back of a tortoise.

  And some say: ‘How can we love our neighbour? For love must be made real in act, as desire unites with desired; we have only our labour to give and our labour is not required.

  We wait on corners, with nothing to bring but the songs we can sing which nobody wants to hear sung;

  10

  Waiting to be flung in the end, on a heap less useful than dung.’

  You, have you built well, have you forgotten the cornerstone?

  Talking of right relations of men, but not of relations of men to GOD.

  ‘Our citizenship is in Heaven’; yes, but that is the model and type for your citizenship upon earth.

  >

  [Commentary I 871 · Textual History II 471–72]

  When your fathers fixed the place of GOD,

  15

  And settled all the inconvenient saints,

  Apostles, martyrs, in a kind of Whipsnade,

  Then they could set about imperial expansion

  Accompanied by industrial development.

  Exporting iron, coal and cotton goods

  20

  And intellectual enlightenment

  And everything, including capital

  And several versions of the Word of GOD:

  The British race assured of a mission

  Performed it, but left much at home unsure.

  25

  Of all that was done in the past, you eat the fruit, either rotten or ripe.

  And the Church must be forever building, and always decaying, and always being restored.

  For every ill deed in the past we suffer the consequence:

  For sloth, for avarice, gluttony, neglect of the Word of GOD,

  For pride, for lechery, treachery, for every act of sin.

  30

  And of all that was done that was good, you have the inheritance.

  For good and ill deeds belong to a man alone, when he stands alone on the other side of death,

  But here upon earth you have the reward of the good and ill that was done by those who have gone before you.

  And all that is ill you may repair if you walk together in humble repentance, expiating the sins of your fathers;

  And all that was good you must fight to keep with hearts as devoted as those of your fathers who fought to gain it.

  35

  The Church must be forever building, for it is forever decaying within and attacked from without;

  For this is the law of life; and you must remember that while there is time of prosperity

  The people will neglect the Temp
le, and in time of adversity they will decry it.

  >

  [Commentary I 871 · Textual History II 472]

  What life have you if you have not life together?

  There is no life that is not in community,

  40

  And no community not lived in praise of GOD.

  Even the anchorite who meditates alone,

  For whom the days and nights repeat the praise of GOD,

  Prays for the Church, the Body of Christ incarnate.

  And now you live dispersed on ribbon roads,

  45

  And no man knows or cares who is his neighbour

  Unless his neighbour makes too much disturbance,

  But all dash to and fro in motor cars,

  Familiar with the roads and settled nowhere.

  Nor does the family even move about together,

  50

  But every son would have his motor cycle,

  And daughters ride away on casual pillions.

  Much to cast down, much to build, much to restore;

  Let the work not delay, time and the arm not waste;

  Let the clay be dug from the pit, let the saw cut the stone,

  55

  Let the fire not be quenched in the forge.

  [Commentary I 871–72 · Textual History II 472]

  III

  The Word of the Lord came unto me, saying:

  O miserable cities of designing men,

  O wretched generation of enlightened men,

  Betrayed in the mazes of your ingenuities,

  5

  Sold by the proceeds of your proper inventions:

  I have given you hands which you turn from worship,

  I have given you speech, for endless palaver,

  I have given you my Law, and you set up commissions,

  I have given you lips, to express friendly sentiments,

  10

  I have given you hearts, for reciprocal distrust.

  I have given you power of choice, and you only alternate

  Between futile speculation and unconsidered action.

  Many are engaged in writing books and printing them,

  Many desire to see their names in print,