β
These fragments I have shored against my ruins
β
β
T.S. Eliot (The Waste Land and Other Poems)
β
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar
Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;
- The Hollow Men
β
β
T.S. Eliot (Poems: 1909-1925)
β
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker, and I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, and in short, I was afraid.
β
β
T.S. Eliot (The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Other Poems)
β
And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor -
And this, and so much more? -
β
β
T.S. Eliot (The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Other Poems)
β
I grow old β¦ I grow old β¦
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
β
β
T.S. Eliot (The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Other Poems)
β
music heard so deeply
That it is not heard at all, but
you are the music
While the music lasts.
β
β
T.S. Eliot (Collected Poems, 1909-1962)
β
I should have been a pair of ragged claws/ Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
β
β
T.S. Eliot (The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Other Poems)
β
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?
β
β
T.S. Eliot (The Waste Land and Other Poems)
β
I have measured out my life in coffee spoons.
β
β
T.S. Eliot (The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Other Poems)
β
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it towards some overwhelming question
β
β
T.S. Eliot (The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Other Poems)
β
Between the desire
And the spasm,
Between the potency
And the existence,
Between the essence
And the descent,
Falls the Shadow.
This is the way the world ends.
from "The Hollow Man
β
β
T.S. Eliot (The Complete Poems and Plays)
β
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
β
β
T.S. Eliot (The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Other Poems)
β
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
β
β
T.S. Eliot (The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Other Poems)
β
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question...
β
β
T.S. Eliot (The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Other Poems)
β
Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
β
β
T.S. Eliot (Selected Poems)
β
You do not know how much they mean to me, my friends,
And how, how rare and strange it is, to find
In a life composed so much, so much of odds and ends,
(For indeed I do not love it ... you knew? you are not blind! How keen you are!)
To find a friend who has these qualities,
Who has, and gives
Those qualities upon which friendship lives.
How much it means that I say this to you-
Without these friendships-life, what cauchemar!
β
β
T.S. Eliot (Collected Poems, 1909-1962)
β
Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning, every poem an epitaph.
β
β
T.S. Eliot (Four Quartets)
β
Oh, do not ask, 'What is it?'/Let us go and make our visit.
β
β
T.S. Eliot (The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Other Poems)
β
Now that the lilacs are in bloom
She has a bowl of lilacs in her room
β
β
T.S. Eliot (Collected Poems, 1909-1962)
β
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet--and here's no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.
β
β
T.S. Eliot (The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Other Poems)
β
Fading, fading: strength beyond hope and despair climbing the third stair. Lord, I am not worthy Lord, I am not worthy but speak the word only.
β
β
T.S. Eliot (The Waste Land and Other Poems)
β
I am moved by fancies that are curled
Around these images, and cling:
The notion of some infinitely gentle
Infinitely suffering thing.
Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh;
The worlds revolve like ancient women
Gathering fuel in vacant lots.
β
β
T.S. Eliot (The Waste Land and Other Poems)
β
Yet with these April sunsets, that somehow recall
My buried life, and Paris in the spring,
I feel immeasurably at peace, and find the world
To be wonderful and youthful afterall
β
β
T.S. Eliot (Collected Poems, 1909-1962)
β
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.
β
β
T.S. Eliot (The Wasteland, Prufrock and Other Poems)
β
Datta, dayadhvam, damyata
(Give, sympathize, control)
β
β
T.S. Eliot (The Waste Land and Other Poems)
β
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 shakes a dead geranium.
β
β
T.S. Eliot (The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Other Poems)
β
Think neither fear nor courage saves us.
Unnatural vices are fathered by our heroism.
Virtues are forced upon us by our impudent crimes.
These tears are shaken from the wrath-bearing tree.
β
β
T.S. Eliot (The Waste Land and Other Poems)
β
The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap
And seeing that it was a soft October night
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep
β
β
T.S. Eliot (The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Other Poems)
β
The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms
β
β
T.S. Eliot (Collected Poems, 1909-1962)
β
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.
β
β
T.S. Eliot (The Waste Land and Other Poems)
β
He is haunted by a demon, a demon against which he feels powerless, because in its first manifestation it has no face, no name, nothing; and the words, the poem he makes, are a kind of exorcism of this demon.
β
β
T.S. Eliot (The Three Voices of Poetry)
β
And indeed there will be time for the yellow smoke that slides along the street rubbing its back upon the window-panes; there will be time , there will be time to prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet; there will be time to murder and create, and time for all the works and days of hands that lift and drop a question on your plate; time for you and time for me, and time yet for a hundred indecisions, and for a hundred visions and revisions, before the taking of toast and tea.
β
β
T.S. Eliot (The Waste Land and Other Poems)
β
My friend, blood shaking my heart
The awful daring of a momentβs 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
β
β
T.S. Eliot (The Wasteland, Prufrock and Other Poems)
β
Endless invention, endless experiment,
Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness;
Knowledge of speech, but not of silence;
Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word.
Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
β
β
T.S. Eliot (The Complete Poems and Plays, 1909-1950)
β
I grow old β¦ I grow old β¦I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
Shall I part my hair behind?
Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.
β
β
T.S. Eliot (The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Other Poems)
β
Honest criticism and sensible appreciation are directed not upon the poet but upon the poetry.
β
β
T.S. Eliot (Collected Poems, 1909-1962)
β
This form, this face, this life living to live in a world of time beyond me; let me resign my life for this life, my speech for that unspoken, the awakened, lips parted, the hope, the new ships.
β
β
T.S. Eliot (The Waste Land and Other Poems)
β
Why should men love the Church? Why should they love her laws?
She tells them of Life and Death, and of all that they would forget.
She is tender where they would be hard, and hard where they like to be soft.
She tells them of Evil and Sin, and other unpleasant facts.
They constantly try to escape
From the darkness outside and within
By dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good.
But the man that is will shadow
The man that pretends to be.
β
β
T.S. Eliot (The Complete Poems and Plays)
β
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?
β
β
T.S. Eliot (The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Other Poems)
β
And the lost heart stiffens and rejoices in the lost lilac and the lost sea voices and the weak spirit quickens to rebel for the bent golden-rod and the lost sea smell quickens to recover.
β
β
T.S. Eliot (The Waste Land and Other Poems)
β
For I have known them all already, known them all -
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?
And I have known the eyes already, known them all -
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?
β
β
T.S. Eliot (T.S. Eliot Reads: The Wasteland, Four Quartets and Other Poems)
β
I that was near your heart was removed therefrom
β
β
T.S. Eliot (The Waste Land and Other Poems)
β
I have seen the eternal Footman snicker hold my coat, and snicker. And in short I was afraid...
β
β
T.S. Eliot (The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Other Poems)
β
I would meet you upon this honestly.
I that was near your heart was removed therefrom
To lose beauty in terror, terror in inquisition.
I have lost my passion: why should I need to keep it
Since what is kept must be adulterated?
I have lost my sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch:
How should I use them for your closer contact?
β
β
T.S. Eliot (Selected Poems)
β
Knowledge of speech, but not of silence;
Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word...
Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
β
β
T.S. Eliot (Collected Poems, 1909-1962)
β
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
Point to one end, which is always present.
β
β
T.S. Eliot (Four Quartets)
β
This is the time of tension between dying and birth
The place of solitude where three dreams cross
Between blue rocks
But when the voices shaken from the yew-tree drift away
Let the other yew be shaken and reply.
Blessèd sister, holy mother, spirit of the fountain, spirit of the garden,
Suffer us not to mock ourselves with falsehood
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still
Even among these rocks,
Our peace in His will
And even among these rocks
Sister, mother
And spirit of the river, spirit of the sea,
Suffer me not to be separated
And let my cry come unto Thee.
β
β
T.S. Eliot (Selected Poems)
β
What seas what shores what grey rocks and what islands
What water lapping the bow
And scent of pine and the woodthrush singing through the fog
What images return
O my daughter
β
β
T.S. Eliot (The Complete Poems and Plays)
β
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 St Mary Woolnoth kept the hours
With a dead sound on the final stock 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 frere!
β
β
T.S. Eliot (Selected Poems)
β
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?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
β
β
T.S. Eliot (The Waste Land and Other Poems (Arcturus Silhouette Classics))
β
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons
β
β
T.S. Eliot (The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Other Poems)
β
We see the light but see not whence it comes. O Light Invisible, we glorify Thee!
β
β
T.S. Eliot (The Waste Land and Other Poems)
β
And indeed there will be time
To wonder, βDo I dare?β and, βDo I dare?β
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
β
β
T.S. Eliot (The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Other Poems)
β
O perpetual revolution of configured stars, o perpetual recurrence of determined seasons, 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; 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? 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.
β
β
T.S. Eliot (The Waste Land and Other Poems)
β
You will go on, and when you have prevailed
You can say: at this point many a one has failed.
But what have I, but what have I, my friend,
To give you, what can you receive from me?
Only the friendship and the sympathy
Of one about to reach her journey's end.
I shall sit here, serving tea to friends...
β
β
T.S. Eliot (Selected Poems)
β
You are invulnerable, you have no Achillesβ heel.
You will go on, and when you have prevailed
You can say: at this point many a one has failed.
But what have I, but what have I, my friend,
To give you, what can you receive from me?
Only the friendship and the sympathy
Of one about to reach her journeyβs end.
β
β
T.S. Eliot (The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Other Poems)
β
After such knowledge, what forgiveness? Think now
History has many cunning passages, contrived corridors
And issues, deceives with whispering ambitions,
Guides us by vanities. Think now
She gives when our attention is distracted
And what she gives, gives with such supple confusions
That the giving famishes the craving. Gives too late
Whatβs not believed in, or if still believed,
In memory only, reconsidered passion. Gives too soon
Into weak hands, whatβs thought can be dispensed with
Till the refusal propagates a fear. Think
Neither fear nor courage saves us. Unnatural vices
Are fathered by our heroism. Virtues
Are forced upon us by our impudent crimes.
These tears are shaken from the wrath-bearing tree.
β
β
T.S. Eliot (The Waste Land and Other Poems)
β
β¦Lady of silences
Calm and distressed
Torn and most whole
Rose of memory
Rose of forgetfulness
Exhausted and life-giving
Worried reposeful
The single Roseβ¦
β
β
T.S. Eliot (The Complete Poems and Plays)
β
What life have you if you have not life together?
There is no life that is not in community,
And no community not lived in praise of GOD.
β
β
T.S. Eliot (Selected Poems)
β
Do I dare Disturb the universe? In a minute there is time For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
β
β
T.S. Eliot (Selected Poems)
β
To do the useful thing, to say the courageous thing, to contemplate the beautiful thing: that is enough for one woman's life.β
T.S. Eliot - The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism
β
β
T.S. Eliot (The Definitive Poems)
β
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.
β
β
T.S. Eliot (The Waste Land and Other Poems)
β
When you notice a cat in profound meditation, The reason, I tell you, is always the same: His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name: His ineffable effable Effanineffable Deep and inscrutable singular Name.
β
β
T.S. Eliot (The Complete Poems and Plays)
β
She is deeply concerned with the ways of the mice β Their behaviourβs not good and their manners not nice; So when she has got them lined up on the matting, She teaches them music, crocheting and tatting.
β
β
T.S. Eliot (The Complete Poems and Plays)
β
Our beginnings never know our ends.
β
β
T.S. Eliot (Selected Poems)
β
Neither fear nor courage saves us. Unnatural vices
Are fathered by our heroism. Virtues
Are forced upon us by our impudent crimes.
β
β
T.S. Eliot (Poems)
β
Do I dare to eat a peach?
β
β
T.S. Eliot (The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Other Poems)
β
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet
β
β
T.S. Eliot (The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Other Poems)
β
I decided that if the shaking of her breasts could be stopped, some of the fragments of the afternoon might be collected, and I concentrated my attention with careful subtlety to this end.
β
β
T.S. Eliot (Collected Poems, 1909-1962)
β
Sovegna vos.
Here are the years that walk between, bearing
Away the fiddles and the flutes, restoring
One who moves in the time between sleep and waking, wearing
White light folded, sheathed about her, folded.
The new years walk, restoring
Through a bright cloud of tears, the years, restoring
With a new verse the ancient rhyme. Redeem
The time. Redeem
The unread vision in the higher dream
While jewelled unicorns draw by the gilded hearse.
β
β
T.S. Eliot (The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Other Poems)
β
But I tell you, a cat needs a name thatβs particular, A name thatβs peculiar, and more dignified, Else how can he keep up his tail perpendicular, Or spread out his whiskers, or cherish his pride? Of names of this kind, I can give you a quorum, Such as Munkustrap, Quaxo, or Coricopat, Such as Bombalurina, or else Jellylorum β Names that never belong to more than one cat.
β
β
T.S. Eliot (The Complete Poems and Plays)
β
Who is the third who walks always beside you?
β
β
T.S. Eliot (The Waste Land and Other Poems)
β
Although I do not hope to turn again
Although I do not hope
Although I do not hope to turn
β
β
T.S. Eliot (The Waste Land and Other Poems)
β
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse
β
β
T.S. Eliot (Selected Poems)
β
Would it have been worthwhile...
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: "That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all.
β
β
T.S. Eliot (The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Other Poems)
β
The remarkable thing about television is that it permits several million people to laugh at the same joke and still feel lonely.
β
β
T.S. Eliot (The Complete Poems and Plays)
β
There is no water, so things are bad. If there were water, it would be better. But there is no water.
β
β
T.S. Eliot (The Waste Land and Other Poems)
β
And in short, I was afraid.
β
β
T.S. Eliot (Collected Poems, 1909-1962)
β
What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make and end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from. And every phrase
And sentence that is right (where every word is at home,
Taking its place to support the others,
The word neither diffident nor ostentatious,
An easy commerce of the old and the new,
The common word exact without vulgarity,
The formal word precise but not pedantic,
The complete consort dancing together)
Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning,
Every poem an epitaph. And any action
Is a step to the block, to the fire, down the sea's throat
Or to an illegible stone: and that is where we start.
We die with the dying:
See, they depart, and we go with them.
We are born with the dead:
See, they return, and bring us with them.
The moment of the rose and the moment of the yew-tree
Are of equal duration. A people without history
Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern
Of timeless moments. So, while the light fails
On a winter's afternoon, in a secluded chapel
History is now and England.
β
β
T.S. Eliot (Little Gidding)
β
I am no prophetβand hereβs no great matter; I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
β
β
T.S. Eliot (The Waste Land, Prufrock and Other Poems)
β
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
β
β
T.S. Eliot (The Waste Land, Prufrock and Other Poems)
β
Ah, my friend, you do not know, you do not know What life is, you who hold it in your hands";
β
β
T.S. Eliot (T. S. Eliot: Collection of Poetry, Poems, and other Works (42 in total) with analysis and historical background (Annotated and Illustrated) (Annotated Classics))
β
Daffodil bulbs instead of balls
Stared from the sockets of the eyes!
He knew that thought clings round dead limbs
Tightening its lusts and luxuries.
β
β
T.S. Eliot (Collected Poems, 1909-1962)
β
There are evil neighborhoods of noise and evil neighborhoods of silence, and Eeldrop and Appleplex preferred the latter, as being the more evil. It
β
β
T.S. Eliot (T. S. Eliot: Collection of Poetry, Poems, and other Works (42 in total) with analysis and historical background (Annotated and Illustrated) (Annotated Classics))
β
Wavering between the profit and the loss In this brief transit where the dreams cross The dreamcrossed twilight between birth and dying
β
β
T.S. Eliot (The Complete Poems and Plays)
β
What life have you if you have not life together?
β
β
T.S. Eliot (Collected Poems)
β
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.
β
β
T.S. Eliot (Collected Poems, 1909-1962)
β
I am tired with my own life and the lives of those after me,
I am dying in my own death and the deaths of those after me.
Let thy servant depart,
Having seen thy salvation.
β
β
T.S. Eliot (Collected Poems)
β
No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
β
β
T.S. Eliot (The Complete Poems and Plays)
β
Words strain, Crack and sometimes break, under the burden, Under the tension, slip, slide, perish, Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place, Will not stay still.
β
β
T.S. Eliot (Collected Poems 1909-1962 (Centenary Edition))
β
... 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.
Oedβ und leer das Meer.
β
β
T.S. Eliot (The Waste Land and Other Poems)
β
Thereβs a loss of personality; Or rather, youβve lost touch with the person You thought you were. You no longer feel quite human. Youβre suddenly reduced to the status of an object β A living object, but no longer a person. Itβs always happening, because one is an object As well as a person. But we forget about it As quickly as we can. When youβve dressed for a party And are going downstairs, with everything about you Arranged to support you in the role you have chosen, Then sometimes, when you come to the bottom step There is one step more than your feet expected And you come down with a jolt. Just for a moment You have the experience of being an object At the mercy of a malevolent staircase.
β
β
T.S. Eliot (The Complete Poems and Plays)
β
TO MY WIFE To whom I owe the leaping delight That quickens my senses in our wakingtime And the rhythm that governs the repose of our sleepingtime, The breathing in unison Of lovers β¦ Who think the same thoughts without need of speech And babble the same speech without need of meaning: To you I dedicate this book, to return as best I can With words a little part of what you have given me. The words mean what they say, but some have a further meaning For you and me only.
β
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T.S. Eliot (The Complete Poems and Plays)
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I could see nothing behind that childβs eye. 40
I have seen eyes in the street
Trying to peer through lighted shutters,
And a crab one afternoon in a pool,
An old crab with barnacles on his back,
Gripped the end of a stick which I held him.
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T.S. Eliot (Collected Poems, 1909-1962)
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Lady of silences Calm and distressed Torn and most whole Rose of memory Rose of forgetfulness Exhausted and life-giving Worried reposeful The single Rose Is now the Garden Where all loves end Terminate torment Of love unsatisfied The greater torment Of love satisfied End of the endless Journey to no end Conclusion of all that Is inconclusible Speech without word and Word of no speech Grace to the Mother For the Garden Where all love ends.
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T.S. Eliot (The Complete Poems and Plays)
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Modern poets like Frost still want to make 'deep' statements; but they are also more sceptical of such high-sounding generalities than many of their forebears. So, rather like T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land, they gesture enigmatically to such profundities while at the same time being nervous of committing themselves to them.
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Terry Eagleton (How to Read a Poem)
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I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
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T.S. Eliot (The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Other Poems)
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The suburban evening was grey and yellow on Sunday; the gardens of the small houses to left and right were rank with ivy and tall grass and lilac bushes; the tropical South London verdure was dusty above and mouldy below; the tepid air swarmed with flies. Eeldrop, at the window, welcomed the smoky smell of lilac, the gramaphones, the choir of the Baptist chapel, and the sight of three small girls playing cards on the steps of the police station.
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T.S. Eliot (T. S. Eliot: Collection of Poetry, Poems, and other Works (42 in total) with analysis and historical background (Annotated and Illustrated) (Annotated Classics))
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John Milton (December 9, 1608 β November 8, 1674) was an English poet, prose polemicist, and civil servant for the English Commonwealth. Most famed for his epic poem Paradise Lost, Milton is celebrated as well for his eloquent treatise condemning censorship, Areopagitica. Long considered the supreme English poet, Milton experienced a dip in popularity after attacks by T.S. Eliot and F.R. Leavis in the mid 20th century; but with multiple societies and scholarly journals devoted to his study, Miltonβs reputation remains as strong as ever in the 21st century. Very soon after his death β and continuing to the present day β Milton became the subject of partisan biographies, confirming T.S. Eliotβs belief that βof no other poet is it so difficult to consider the poetry simply as poetry, without our theological and political dispositionsβ¦making unlawful entry.β Miltonβs radical, republican politics and heretical religious views, coupled with the perceived artificiality of his complicated Latinate verse, alienated Eliot and other readers; yet by dint of the overriding influence of his poetry and personality on subsequent generationsβparticularly the Romantic movementβthe man whom Samuel Johnson disparaged as βan acrimonious and surly republicanβ must be counted one of the most significant writers and thinkers of all time. Source: Wikipedia
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John Milton (Paradise Lost (Norton Critical Editions))
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i think any poem worth its salt, if poems can indeed be salty, should allow the reader to think. this poem is of course a chronological poem tracing the development of humans through the movement of black women. i have no feelings that the poem is exclusive of any one but i wanted to write a sassy hands-on-the-hips poem from the understanding that i am a woman and indeed was once a girl. i think it works because the more you know about anthropology and history the more you can follow what i am saying; on the other hand you can be a little child with no previous experiences and catch the joy of the poem. it goes from the first human bones discovered all the way to the space age. what has been included is as important to me as what has been excluded. what i strove to do was show progress, movement, humor and a bit of pride.
this is the most iβve ever commented on any poem of mine since i tend to agree with t.s. eliot when he said a poet was the last person to know what the poem was/is about.
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Nikki Giovanni