The Waste Land By T. S. Eliot

“Nam Sibyllam quidem Cumis ego ipse oculis meis vidi
in ampulla pendere, et cum illi pueri dicerent: Σιβυλλα
τι θελεις; respondebat illa: αποθανειν θελω.”

                        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 archduke’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.	 
Öd’ 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 carvèd 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 to-night. 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 to-morrow?	 
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 alright, 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 week-end 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 tea-time, 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 patronizing 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
South-west 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 finger-nails 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 seas 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 torch-light red on sweaty faces	 
After the frosty silence in the gardens	 
After the agony in stony places	 
The shouting and the crying
Prison and place 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 mud-cracked 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 roof-tree	 
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, aetherial 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 ceu 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