The Waste Land
BY T. S. ELIOT
FOR EZRA
POUND
IL MIGLIOR
FABBRO
I. The Burial of the Dead
April is the cruellest month,
breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
Summer surprised us, coming over the
Starnbergersee
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the
colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the
Hofgarten,
And drank coffee, and talked for an
hour.
Bin gar keine Russin, stamm’ aus
Litauen, echt deutsch.
And when we were children, staying at
the arch-duke’s,
My cousin’s, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south
in the winter.
What are the roots that clutch,
what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know
only
A heap of broken images, where the sun
beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the
cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water.
Only
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red
rock),
And I will show you something different
from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind
you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet
you;
I will show you fear in a handful of
dust.
Frisch weht der Wind
Der
Heimat zu
Mein
Irisch Kind,
Wo
weilest du?
“You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;
“They called me the hyacinth girl.”
—Yet when we came back, late, from the
Hyacinth garden,
Your arms full, and your hair wet, I
could not
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,
Looking into the heart of light, the
silence.
Oed’ und leer das Meer.
Madame Sosostris, famous
clairvoyante,
Had a bad cold, nevertheless
Is known to be the wisest woman in
Europe,
With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said
she,
Is your card, the drowned Phoenician
Sailor,
(Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)
Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the
Rocks,
The lady of situations.
Here is the man with three staves, and
here the Wheel,
And here is the one-eyed merchant, and
this card,
Which is blank, is something he carries
on his back,
Which I am forbidden to see. I do not
find
The Hanged Man. Fear death by water.
I see crowds of people, walking round in
a ring.
Thank you. If you see dear Mrs.
Equitone,
Tell her I bring the horoscope myself:
One must be so careful these days.
Unreal City,
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so
many,
I had not thought death had undone so
many.
Sighs, short and infrequent, were
exhaled,
And each man fixed his eyes before his
feet.
Flowed up the hill and down King William
Street,
To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the
hours
With a dead sound on the final stroke of
nine.
There I saw one I knew, and stopped him,
crying: “Stetson!
“You who were with me in the ships at
Mylae!
“That corpse you planted last year in
your garden,
“Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom
this year?
“Or has the sudden frost disturbed its
bed?
“Oh keep the Dog far hence, that’s
friend to men,
“Or with his nails he’ll dig it up
again!
“You! hypocrite lecteur!—mon
semblable,—mon frère!”
II.
A Game of Chess
The Chair she sat in, like a burnished
throne,
Glowed on the marble, where the glass
Held up by standards wrought with
fruited vines
From which a golden Cupidon peeped out
(Another hid his eyes behind his wing)
Doubled the flames of sevenbranched
candelabra
Reflecting light upon the table as
The glitter of her jewels rose to meet it,
From satin cases poured in rich profusion;
In vials of ivory and coloured glass
Unstoppered, lurked her strange synthetic perfumes,
Unguent, powdered, or liquid—troubled, confused
And drowned the sense in odours; stirred by the air
That freshened from the window, these ascended
In fattening the prolonged
candle-flames,
Flung their smoke into the laquearia,
Stirring the pattern on the coffered
ceiling.
Huge sea-wood fed with copper
Burned green and orange, framed by the coloured stone,
In which sad light a carvéd dolphin swam.
Above the antique mantel was displayed
As though a window gave upon the sylvan
scene
The change of Philomel, by the barbarous
king
So rudely forced; yet there the
nightingale
Filled all the desert with inviolable
voice
And still she cried, and still the world
pursues,
“Jug Jug” to dirty ears.
And other withered stumps of time
Were told upon the walls; staring forms
Leaned out, leaning, hushing the room
enclosed.
Footsteps shuffled on the stair.
Under the firelight, under the brush,
her hair
Spread out in fiery points
Glowed into words, then would be savagely still.
“My nerves are bad tonight. Yes,
bad. Stay with me.
“Speak to me. Why do you never speak.
Speak.
“What are you thinking of? What
thinking? What?
“I never know what you are thinking.
Think.”
I think we are in rats’ alley
Where the dead men lost their bones.
“What is that noise?”
The wind under the door.
“What is that noise now? What is the wind doing?”
Nothing again nothing.
“Do
“You know nothing? Do you see nothing?
Do you remember
“Nothing?”
I
remember
Those are pearls that were his eyes.
“Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your
head?”
But
O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag—
It’s so elegant
So intelligent
“What shall I do now? What shall I do?”
“I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street
“With my hair down, so. What shall we do
tomorrow?
“What shall we ever do?”
The hot water at ten.
And if it rains, a closed car at four.
And we shall play a game of chess,
Pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a
knock upon the door.
When Lil’s husband got
demobbed, I said—
I didn’t mince my words, I said to her myself,
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
Now Albert’s coming back, make yourself a bit smart.
He’ll want to know what you done with
that money he gave you
To get yourself some teeth. He did, I
was there.
You have them all out, Lil, and get a
nice set,
He said, I swear, I can’t bear to look at you.
And no more can’t I, I said, and think
of poor Albert,
He’s been in the army four years, he
wants a good time,
And if you don’t give it him, there’s
others will, I said.
Oh is there, she said. Something o’
that, I said.
Then I’ll know who to thank, she said,
and give me a straight look.
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
If you don’t like it you can get on with
it, I said.
Others can pick and choose if you can’t.
But if Albert makes off, it won’t be for
lack of telling.
You ought to be ashamed, I said, to look
so antique.
(And her only thirty-one.)
I can’t help it, she said, pulling a
long face,
It’s them pills I took, to bring it off,
she said.
(She’s had five already, and nearly died
of young George.)
The chemist said it would be all right,
but I’ve never been the same.
You are a proper fool,
I said.
Well, if Albert won’t leave you alone,
there it is, I said,
What you get married for if you don’t
want children?
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
Well, that Sunday Albert was home, they
had a hot gammon,
And they asked me in to dinner, to get
the beauty of it hot—
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
Goonight Bill. Goonight Lou. Goonight
May. Goonight.
Ta ta. Goonight. Goonight.
Good night, ladies, good night, sweet
ladies, good night, good night.
III.
The Fire Sermon
The river’s tent is broken: the
last fingers of leaf
Clutch and sink into the wet bank. The
wind
Crosses the brown land, unheard. The
nymphs are departed.
Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my
song.
The river bears no empty bottles,
sandwich papers,
Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends
Or other testimony of summer nights. The
nymphs are departed.
And their friends, the loitering heirs
of city directors;
Departed, have left no addresses.
By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept . . .
Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my
song,
Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak
not loud or long.
But at my back in a cold blast I hear
The rattle of the bones, and chuckle
spread from ear to ear.
A rat crept softly through the
vegetation
Dragging its slimy belly on the bank
While I was fishing in the dull canal
On a winter evening round behind the gashouse
Musing upon the king my brother’s wreck
And on the king my father’s death before
him.
White bodies naked on the low damp
ground
And bones cast in a little low dry
garret,
Rattled by the rat’s foot only, year to year.
But at my back from time to time I hear
The sound of horns and motors, which shall bring
Sweeney to Mrs. Porter in the spring.
O the moon shone bright on Mrs. Porter
And on her daughter
They wash their feet in soda water
Et O ces voix d’enfants, chantant dans
la coupole!
Twit twit twit
Jug jug jug jug jug jug
So rudely forc’d.
Tereu
Unreal City
Under the brown fog of a winter noon
Mr. Eugenides, the Smyrna merchant
Unshaven, with a pocket full of currants
C.i.f. London: documents at sight,
Asked me in demotic French
To luncheon at the Cannon Street Hotel
Followed by a weekend at the Metropole.
At the violet hour, when the eyes and
back
Turn upward from the desk, when the
human engine waits
Like a taxi throbbing waiting,
I Tiresias, though blind, throbbing
between two lives,
Old man with wrinkled female breasts,
can see
At the violet hour, the evening hour
that strives
Homeward, and brings the sailor home
from sea,
The typist home at teatime, clears her
breakfast, lights
Her stove, and lays out food in tins.
Out of the window perilously spread
Her drying combinations touched by the sun’s last rays,
On the divan are piled (at night her
bed)
Stockings, slippers, camisoles, and
stays.
I Tiresias, old man with wrinkled dugs
Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest—
I too awaited the expected guest.
He, the young man carbuncular, arrives,
A small house agent’s clerk, with one
bold stare,
One of the low on whom assurance sits
As a silk hat on a Bradford millionaire.
The time is now propitious, as he
guesses,
The meal is ended, she is bored and
tired,
Endeavours to engage her in caresses
Which still are unreproved, if
undesired.
Flushed and decided, he assaults at
once;
Exploring hands encounter no defence;
His vanity requires no response,
And makes a welcome of indifference.
(And I Tiresias have foresuffered all
Enacted on this same divan or bed;
I who have sat by Thebes below the wall
And walked among the lowest of the
dead.)
Bestows one final patronising kiss,
And gropes his way, finding the stairs unlit . . .
She turns and looks a moment in the glass,
Hardly aware of her departed lover;
Her brain allows one half-formed thought to pass:
“Well now that’s done: and I’m glad it’s
over.”
When lovely woman stoops to folly and
Paces about her room again, alone,
She smoothes her hair with automatic
hand,
And puts a record on the gramophone.
“This music crept by me upon the waters”
And along the Strand, up Queen Victoria
Street.
O City city, I can sometimes hear
Beside a public bar in Lower Thames
Street,
The pleasant whining of a mandoline
And a clatter and a chatter from within
Where fishmen lounge at noon: where the walls
Of Magnus Martyr hold
Inexplicable splendour of Ionian white and
gold.
The river sweats
Oil and tar
The barges drift
With the turning tide
Red sails
Wide
To leeward, swing on the heavy spar.
The barges wash
Drifting logs
Down Greenwich reach
Past the Isle of Dogs.
Weialala leia
Wallala leialala
Elizabeth and Leicester
Beating oars
The stern was formed
A gilded shell
Red and gold
The brisk swell
Rippled both shores
Southwest wind
Carried down stream
The peal of bells
White towers
Weialala leia
Wallala leialala
“Trams and dusty trees.
Highbury bore me. Richmond and Kew
Undid me. By Richmond I raised my knees
Supine on the floor of a narrow canoe.”
“My feet are at Moorgate, and my heart
Under my feet. After the event
He wept. He promised a ‘new start.’
I made no comment. What should I
resent?”
“On Margate Sands.
I can connect
Nothing with nothing.
The broken fingernails of dirty hands.
My people humble people who expect
Nothing.”
la la
To Carthage then I came
Burning burning burning burning
O Lord Thou pluckest me out
O Lord Thou pluckest
burning
IV.
Death by Water
Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep
sea swell
And the profit and loss.
A current under sea
Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose
and fell
He passed the stages of his age and youth
Entering the whirlpool.
Gentile or Jew
O you who turn the wheel and look to
windward,
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome
and tall as you.
V.
What the Thunder Said
After the torchlight red on sweaty faces
After the frosty silence in the gardens
After the agony in stony places
The shouting and the crying
Prison and palace and reverberation
Of thunder of spring over distant
mountains
He who was living is now dead
We who were living are now dying
With a little patience
Here is no water but only rock
Rock and no water and the sandy road
The road winding above among the
mountains
Which are mountains of rock without
water
If there were water we should stop and drink
Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think
Sweat is dry and feet are in the sand
If there were only water amongst the
rock
Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit
Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit
There is not even silence in the
mountains
But dry sterile thunder without rain
There is not even solitude in the
mountains
But red sullen faces sneer and snarl
From doors of mudcracked houses
If there were water
And no rock
If there were rock
And also water
And water
A spring
A pool among the rock
If there were the sound of
water only
Not the cicada
And dry grass singing
But sound of water over a rock
Where the hermit-thrush
sings in the pine trees
Drip drop drip drop drop
drop drop
But there is no water
Who is the third who walks always beside
you?
When I count, there are only you and I together
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you
Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
I do not know whether a man or a woman
—But who is that on the other side of
you?
What is that sound high in the air
Murmur of maternal lamentation
Who are those hooded hordes swarming
Over endless plains, stumbling in
cracked earth
Ringed by the flat horizon only
What is the city over the mountains
Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air
Falling towers
Jerusalem Athens Alexandria
Vienna London
Unreal
A woman drew her long black hair out
tight
And fiddled whisper music on those
strings
And bats with baby faces in the violet
light
Whistled, and beat their wings
And crawled head downward down a blackened
wall
And upside down in air were towers
Tolling reminiscent bells, that kept the hours
And voices singing out of empty cisterns
and exhausted wells.
In this decayed hole among the mountains
In the faint moonlight, the grass is
singing
Over the tumbled graves, about the
chapel
There is the empty chapel, only the
wind’s home.
It has no windows, and the door swings,
Dry bones can harm no one.
Only a cock stood on the rooftree
Co co rico co co rico
In a flash of lightning. Then a damp
gust
Bringing rain
Ganga was sunken, and the limp leaves
Waited for rain, while the black clouds
Gathered far distant, over Himavant.
The jungle crouched, humped in silence.
Then spoke the thunder
DA
Datta: what have we given?
My friend, blood shaking my heart
The awful daring of a moment’s surrender
Which an age of prudence can never
retract
By this, and this only, we have existed
Which is not to be found in our
obituaries
Or in memories draped by the beneficent
spider
Or under seals broken by the lean
solicitor
In our empty rooms
DA
Dayadhvam: I have heard the key
Turn in the door once and turn once only
We think of the key, each in his prison
Thinking of the key, each confirms a
prison
Only at nightfall, aethereal rumours
Revive for a moment a broken Coriolanus
DA
Damyata: The boat responded
Gaily, to the hand expert with sail and
oar
The sea was calm, your heart would have
responded
Gaily, when invited, beating obedient
To controlling hands
I sat upon the shore
Fishing, with the arid plain behind me
Shall I at least set my lands in order?
London Bridge is falling down falling
down falling down
Poi s’ascose nel foco che gli affina
Quando fiam uti chelidon—O swallow swallow
Le Prince d’Aquitaine à la tour abolie
These fragments I have shored against my
ruins
Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo’s mad
againe.
Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.
Shantih shantih shantih
