Ts Eliot Poems Quotes

These fragments I have shored against my ruins

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

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.

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? -

I grow old … I grow old … I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

music heard so deeply That it is not heard at all, but you are the music While the music lasts.

I should have been a pair of ragged claws/ Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

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?

I have measured out my life in coffee spoons.

It is impossible to say just what I mean!

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

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

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?

Let us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the sky

Streets that follow like a tedious argument Of insidious intent To lead you to an overwhelming question...

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!

Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning, every poem an epitaph.

Oh, do not ask, 'What is it?'/Let us go and make our visit.

Now that the lilacs are in bloom She has a bowl of lilacs in her room

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.

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.

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.

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.

Datta, dayadhvam, damyata (Give, sympathize, control)

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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 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.

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?

I grow old … I grow old …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.

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

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.

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.

Honest criticism and sensible appreciation are directed not upon the poet but upon the poetry.

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.

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?

I have seen the eternal Footman snicker hold my coat, and snicker. And in short I was afraid...

I that was near your heart was removed therefrom

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

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?

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.

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?

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.

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.

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?

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!

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons

We see the light but see not whence it comes. O Light Invisible, we glorify Thee!

And indeed there will be time To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?” Time to turn back and descend the stair,

…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…

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...

You are invulnerable, you have no Achilles’ 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 journey’s end.

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 What’s not believed in, or if still believed, In memory only, reconsidered passion. Gives too soon Into weak hands, what’s 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.

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.

Do I dare Disturb the universe? In a minute there is time For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

Do I dare to eat a peach?

To do the useful thing, to say the courageous thing, to contemplate the beautiful thing: that is enough for one woman's life.” T.S. Eliot - The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism

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.

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.

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.

She is deeply concerned with the ways of the mice — Their behaviour’s 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.

Neither fear nor courage saves us. Unnatural vices Are fathered by our heroism. Virtues Are forced upon us by our impudent crimes.

There will be time, there will be time To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet

Our beginnings never know our ends.

I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter; I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,

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.

But I tell you, a cat needs a name that’s particular, A name that’s 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 — Names that never belong to more than one cat.

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.

There is no water, so things are bad. If there were water, it would be better. But there is no water.

The remarkable thing about television is that it permits several million people to laugh at the same joke and still feel lonely.

And in short, I was afraid.

Who is the third who walks always beside you?

Politic, cautious, and meticulous; full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse

Although I do not hope to turn again Although I do not hope Although I do not hope to turn

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.

There’s a loss of personality; Or rather, you’ve lost touch with the person You thought you were. You no longer feel quite human. You’re suddenly reduced to the status of an object — A living object, but no longer a person. It’s always happening, because one is an object As well as a person. But we forget about it As quickly as we can. When you’ve 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.

... 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.

What life have you if you have not life together?

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;

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.

There are evil neighborhoods of noise and evil neighborhoods of silence, and Eeldrop and Appleplex preferred the latter, as being the more evil. It

I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

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.

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.

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.

Wavering between the profit and the loss In this brief transit where the dreams cross The dreamcrossed twilight between birth and dying

Ah, my friend, you do not know, you do not know What life is, you who hold it in your hands";

Those who have crossed With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom Remember us — if at all — not as lost Violent souls, but only As the hollow men The stuffed men.

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.

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 … 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.

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. (It's not the main point of the poem, but I am the third generation of my family who's never been able to eat a peach without wondering, do I dare and do I dare)

Let me be no nearer In death’s dream kingdom Let me also wear Such deliberate disguises Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves In a field Behaving as the wind behaves No nearer — Not that final meeting In the twilight kingdom

I could see nothing behind that child’s 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.

The thousand sordid images Of which your soul was constituted; They flickered against the ceiling. And when all the world came back And the light crept up between the shutters, And you heard the sparrows in the gutters, You had such a vision of the street.

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.

I sometimes wonder if that is what Krishna meant — Among other things — or one way of putting the same thing: That the future is a faded song, a Royal Rose or a lavender spray Of wistful regret for those who are not yet here to regret, Pressed between yellow leaves of a book that has never been opened.

Teach us to sit still. — T.S. Eliot, from “Ash Wednesday,” Selected Poems (Faber & Faber; 80th ed. Edition, May 7, 2009) Originally January 1, 1936.

The poem which is absolutely original is absolutely bad.

We returned to our places, these Kingdoms, But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,

The notion of some infinitely gentle Infinitely suffering thing.

In a minute there is time  For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

Darkness reminds us of light.

Under the penitential gates Sustained by staring Seraphim Where the souls of the devout Burn invisible and dim.

Let us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the sky

All this was a long time ago, I remember, And I would do it again, but set down This set down This: were we led all that way for Birth or Death?

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. And

Streets that follow like a tedious argument Of insidious intent

And for a hundred visions and revisions,

This is the dead land This is cactus land Here the stone images Are raised,

Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.” T.S. ELIOT, from the preface to Transit of Venus: Poems by Harry Crosby (1931)

Deferential, glad to be of use, Politic, cautious, and meticulous; Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse

I should have been a pair of ragged claws Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

I am no prophet – and here's no great matter; I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker.

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.

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.

The conscience of a blackened street Impatient to assume the world. I am moved by fancies that are curled Around these images, and cling: The notion of some infinitely gentle Infinitely suffering thing.

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.

but set down/This set down/This: were we led all that way for/ Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,/We had evidence and no doubt./I had seen birth and death,/But had thought they were different; this Birth was/Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.

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, 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.

I shall not want Society in Heaven, Lucretia Borgia shall be my Bride; Her anecdotes will be more amusing Than Pipit’s experience could provide. I shall not want Pipit in Heaven: Madame Blavatsky will instruct me In the Seven Sacred Trances; Piccarda de Donati will conduct me. . . . . . But where is the penny world I bought To eat with Pipit behind the screen? The red-eyed scavengers are creeping From Kentish Town and Golder’s Green; Where are the eagles and the trumpets? Buried beneath some snow-deep Alps. Over buttered scones and crumpets Weeping, weeping multitudes Droop in a hundred A.B.C.’s.

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.

Because I know that time is always time And place is always and only place And what is actual is actual only for one time And only for one place I rejoice that things are as they are and I renounce the blessed face And renounce the voice Because I cannot hope to turn again Consequently I rejoice, having to construct something Upon which to rejoice.

Time and the bell have buried the day, The black cloud carries the sun away. Will the sunflower turn to us, will the clematis Stray down, bend to us; tendril and spray Clutch and cling? Chill Fingers of yew be curled Down on us? After the kingfisher's wing Has answered light to light, and is silent, the light is still At the still point of the turning world.

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.

Well I never! Was there ever A Cat so clever As Magical Mr. Mistoffelees!   He is quiet and small, he is black From his ears to the tip of his tail; He can creep through the tiniest crack, He can walk on the narrowest rail. He can pick any card from a pack, He is equally cunning with dice; He is always deceiving you into believing That he’s only hunting for mice.

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.

The ordinary reader, when warned against the obscurity of a poem, is apt to be thrown into a state of consternation very unfavourable to poetic receptivity. Instead of beginning, as he should, in a state of sensitivity, he obfuscates his senses by the desire to be clever and to look very hard for something, he doesn't know what-or else by the desire not to be taken ill. There is such a thing as stage fright, but what such readers have is pit or gallery fright. The more seasoned reader, he who has reached, in these matters, a state of greater purity, does not bother about understanding; not, at least, at first. I know that some of the poetry to which I am most devoted is poetry which I did not understand at first reading; some is poetry which I am not sure I understand yet: for instance, Shakespeare's.

Now that lilacs are in bloom She has a bowl of lilacs in her room And twists one in her fingers while she talks. 'Ah, my friend, you do not know, you do not know What life is, you who hold it in your hands'; (Slowly twisting the lilac stalks) 'You let it flow from you, you let it flow, And youth is cruel, and has no remorse And smiles at situations which it cannot see.' I smile, of course, And go on drinking tea.

John Milton (December 9, 1608 – 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, Milton’s reputation remains as strong as ever in the 21st century. Very soon after his death – and continuing to the present day – Milton became the subject of partisan biographies, confirming T.S. Eliot’s belief that “of no other poet is it so difficult to consider the poetry simply as poetry, without our theological and political dispositions…making unlawful entry.” Milton’s 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 generations—particularly the Romantic movement—the man whom Samuel Johnson disparaged as “an acrimonious and surly republican” must be counted one of the most significant writers and thinkers of all time. Source: Wikipedia

Well! and what if she should die some afternoon, Afternoon grey and smoky, evening yellow and rose; Should die and leave me sitting pen in hand With the smoke coming down above the housetops; Doubtful, for a while Not knowing what to feel or if I understand Or whether wise or foolish, tardy or too soon ... Would she not have the advantage, after all? This music is successful with a 'dying fall' Now that we talk of dying — And should I have the right to smile?

Well! and what if she should die some afternoon, Afternoon grey and smoky, evening yellow and rose; Should die and leave me sitting pen in hand With the smoke coming down above the housetops; Doubtful, for a while Not knowing what to feel or if I understand Or whether wise or foolish, tardy or too soon . . . Would she not have the advantage, after all? This music is successful with a “dying fall” Now that we talk of dying— And should I have the right to smile?

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 i’ve 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.

I have nothing to do but watch the days draw out, Now that I sit in the house from October to June, And the swallow comes too soon and the spring will be over And the cuckoo will be gone before I am out again. O Sun, that was once so warm, O Light that was taken for granted When I was young and strong, and sun and light unsought for And the night unfeared and the day expected And clocks could be trusted, tomorrow assured And time would not stop in the dark! Put on the lights. But leave the curtains undrawn. Make up the fire. Will the spring never come?

T.S. Eliot expresses it _so_ -- the poem is a raid on the inarticulate. I, Eva von Outryve de Crommelynck, agree with him. Poems who are not written yet, or not written ever, exists here. The realm of the inarticulate. Art" -- she put another cigarette in her mouth, and this time I was ready with the dragon lighter -- "fabricated of the inarticulate _is_ beauty. Even if its themes is ugly. Silver moons, thundering seas, clichés of cheese, poison beauty. The amateur thinks _his_ words, _his_ paints, _his_ notes, make the beauty. But master knows his words is just the _vehicle_ in who beauty sits. The master knows he does _not_ know what beauty is.

These “green revolutionaries” do not believe that we must forever impotently fall short of the bull’s-eye. They refuse to admit original sin, or inborn neuroses, or even the theosophists’ “Lurker at the Threshold” (one who supposedly eats the heads of those people rash enough to invade the higher planes without an invitation). They will not accept the perpetual barrier between desire and reality lamented by T.S. Eliot in his poem “The Hollow Men.” According to Eliot’s quite orthodox Christian view, there is a “Shadow” that always falls between “the idea and the reality,” “the desire and the spasm,” “the motion and the Act.” This Shadow is, of course, Original Sin and by definition no man or woman can remove it.

We do not like what happens when we are awake, because it too closely resembles what happens when we are asleep. We understand the ordinary business of living, We know how to work the machine, We can usually avoid accidents, We are insured against fire, Against larceny and illness, Against defective plumbing, But not against the act of God. We know various spells and enchantments. And minor forms of sorcery, Divination and chiromancy, Specifics against insomnia, Lumbago, and the loss of money. But the circle of our understanding Is a very restricted area. Except for a limited number Of strictly practical purposes We do not know what we are doing; And even, when you think of it, We do not know much about thinking

If the artistic emotion presented by any episode of the Comedy is dependent upon the whole, we may proceed to inquire what the whole scheme is. The usefulness of allegory and astronomy is obvious. A mechanical framework, in a poem of so vast an ambit, was a necessity. As the centre of gravity of emotions is more remote from a single human action, or a system of purely human actions, than in drama or epic, so the framework has to be more artificial and apparently more mechanical. It is not essential that the allegory or the almost unintelligible astronomy should be understood—only that its presence should be justified. The emotional structure within this scaffold is what must be understood—the structure made possible by the scaffold. This structure is an ordered scale of human emotions. Not, necessarily, all human emotions; and in any case all the emotions are limited, and also extended in significance by their place in the scheme.

The Naming of Cats The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter, It isn’t just one of your holiday games; You may think at first I’m as mad as a hatter When I tell you, a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES. First of all, there’s the name that the family use daily, Such as Peter, Augustus, Alonzo or James, Such as Victor or Jonathan, George or Bill Bailey- All of them sensible everyday names. There are fancier names if you think they sound sweeter, Some for the gentlemen, some for the dames: Such as Plato, Admetus, Electra, Demeter— But all of them sensible everyday names. But I tell you, a cat needs a name that’s particular, A name that’s 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— Names that never belong to more than one cat. But above and beyond there’s still one name left over, And that is the name that you never will guess; The name that no human research can discover— But THE CAT HIMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess.

If the new building is generally recognisable as falling within a mnemotype category then that mnemotype is adjusted to accommodate the novel elements in the building. The mnemotype can be considered as a template with adjustable edges. Each new architectural experience fractionally changes our perception of the whole spectrum of architecture in much the same way that T.S. Eliot considered every new poem to change the whole corpus of poetry. However, a building which allegedly belongs to a given mnemotype, but which threatens radically to change the shape of the template, is frequently greeted with hostility and rejected as an aberration.

Françoise and her cow at the opening of La Terre or the equally lovely music with which Berg’s orchestra sorrows over Lulu. Zola and Berg, in their different ways, remind us that real beauty can be found, even in what is seedy, painful and decayed. Our ability to tell the truth about our own condition, in measured words and touching melodies, offers a kind of redemption from it. The most influential work of twentieth-century English literature, T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, describes the modern city as a soulless desert: but it does so with images and allusions that affirm what the city denies. Our very ability to make this judgement is the final disproof of it. If we can grasp the emptiness of modern life, this is because art points to another way of being, and Eliot’s poem makes this other way available. The Waste Landbelongs to the tradition of Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du mal, Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, and James’s The Golden Bowl. It describes what is seedy and sordid in words so resonant of the opposite, so replete with the capacity to feel, to sympathize and to understand, that life in its lowest forms is vindicated by our response to it. This ‘redemption through art’ occurs only because the artist aims at beauty in the narrow sense. And this is the paradox of fin-de-siècleculture: that it continued to believe in beauty, while focusing on all the reasons for doubting that beauty is obtainable outside the realm of art.

April is the cruelest month.' So begins T.S. Eliot’s 1922 masterpiece, a 434-line poem titled 'The Waste Land.' Until my employment as a trail maintenance worker, this had simply been a line on a page, albeit a line fraught with metaphorical import and potential. Now I saw it for what it was—a big fat lie—because Eliot grew up in St. Louis and no one forgets what a Missouri summer is like. If the Nobel laureate had been truthful with himself, the opening verse would start out, 'June’s a bitch.

I hurried to the Post Office and was given two fat parcels, which I opened with the scissors in the kitchen. Shakespeare’s Collected Works, T.S. Eliot’s Collected Poems and Plays, Oscar Wilde’s Collected Works and a book with photos of naked women.

The Wasteland was an empty car park behind a long abandoned pub. Minah like it because she said it reminded her of the permanence of concrete in stark contrast to the entropy of humanity. Harrison had dubbed it the Wasteland after the TS Eliot poem, because it was full of disillusionment and despair.

Hillary’s 92-page senior thesis was entitled “THERE IS ONLY THE FIGHT … An Analysis of the Alinsky Model.”2 Hillary attributed her title to two lines from the second poem, “East Cokor,” in T.S. Eliot’s 1940 “Four Quartets,” that read: (1.) “There is only the fight to recover what has been lost,” and (2.) “And found and lost again and again.” In

There is no objective test for divine revelation, no forensic evidence to evaluate. Even for the believer it is an experience beyond normal comprehension. It is, as T.S. Eliot put it, the intersection of the timeless with time. Mortals on occasion may, perhaps, catch transient glimpses that give intimations of this profound experience, which is the theme of Eliot's poem The Four Quartets.

I've read dozens of interviews and accounts that basically come down to How Poets Do It and the truth is they're all do-lally and they're all different. There's Gerard Manly Hopkins in his black Jesuit clothes lying face down on the ground to look at an individual bluebell, Robert Frost who never used a desk, was once caught short by a poem coming and wrote it on the sole of his shoe, T.S. Eliot in his I'm-not-a-Poet suit with his solid sensible available-for-poetry three hours a day, Ted Hughes folded into his tiny cubicle at the top of the stairs where there is no window, no sight or smell of earth or animal but the rain clatter on the roof bows him to the page, Pablo Neruda who grandly declared poetry should only ever be handwritten, and then added his own little bit of bonkers by saying: in green ink. Poets are their own nation. Most of them know.

In an Empire that was simply stagnant, neither being developed nor falling to pieces, and in an England ruled by people whose chief asset was their stupidity, to be 'clever' was to be suspect. If you had the kind of brain that could understand the poems of T.S. Eliot or the theories of Karl Marx, the higher-ups would see to it that you were kept out of any important job.

T.S. Eliot wrote: ‘and so each venture/is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate/with shabby equipment always deteriorating/in the general mess of imprecision of feeling.’ We clap our hands to our hearts in gratitude that unsayable has simply been said. Why? Some deep chord in us is struck when form is realized- a chord in which nature must always be one of the notes because to make art is to practice the form-making compulsion of nature, exercising “wild mind.” Wild is a name for the way that phenomena continually actualize themselves- here a saguaro, there a cypress, here a raven’s prrruk, there a warbler’s cheedle cheedle che che che che, here a sonnet, there a free forming cloud of a poem. 'music heard so deeply/that it is not heard at all, but you are the/music.

and he was too dense—and, in recent months, too drunk—to follow Mother into what T.S. Eliot had called, in his poem “Gerontion,” “the wilderness of mirrors.

into mine. It is a book that is deliberately ambiguous, that carefully avoids telling the reader what to believe. It is not meant for didactic teaching; you cannot prove what happened between Phineas and Gene in the central event of the novel. In that sense it is like reading a certain kind of poetry— I know that T. S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” does not mean to me what he thought it would, but that’s the point: it’s a poem written to be so multifaceted that every reader can find a different meaning.

Today, the work that is most associated with Weston's memory is one that she wrote when she was 70 years old. From Rituals to Romance, published in 1921, is Weston's best known work largely in part due to the fact that T.S. Eliot named it as one of his great sources and influences for his poem, The Waste Land. In a note in the work, Eliot wrote: Not only the title, but the plan and a good deal of the incidental symbolism of the poem were suggested by Miss Jessie L. Weston's book on the Grail legend: From Ritual to Romance (Cambridge).

A final point on this poem, & RH as a poet. 1 of the great conflation made in criticism of poetry is the terms great & important. They are 2 different things. There are great poets who are not particularly important. In this camp would be an Edgar Allan Poe, Pablo Neruda, Emily Dickinson, Rudyard Kipling, Ezra Pound, Robinson Jeffers, & Countee Cullen, among some others. These are poets for whom there is no doubt that great poetry sprang from. BUT, their work did not have a profound effect on the advancement of the art form of poetry. They were either technically superb craftsmen who were the best at their craft but wrote on things, & in ways, similar to others. They were simply better. Here would be Poe, Kipling, & Cullen. Or they were inventive & unique, but while inspiring devotees, never gave rise to poetic heirs. Here is Dickinson. Or they were hit & miss poets who often set back the art. Here are Neruda- whose great personal, lyric, & love poems in a traditional vein were counterbalanced by his atrociously puerile political & ‘experimental’ poems. Also in this category- despite his High Modernist credentials, is Ezra Pound. Most of his great poems are in ancient forms, in mock fashion. An envelope-pusher he was not- although he spurred TSE to greater heights than he was capable of by himself. Then there is a Jeffers- a poet who was superb; yet mystifyingly left little impact- most likely due to his reclusive personae & political prophesying. Yet all these poets touched the ineffable at least a few times in their careers. A 2nd camp are those poets who are important but not really great poets. Their poems had significant impact on the art, but the poets’ work, overall, rarely touched greatness. In this camp would reside a T.S. Eliot- whose whole career consists of 5 or 6 near-great to great poems & a passel of shit, William Carlos Williams- whose prosaic approach to poetry overshadowed the fact that he only had 10 or 12 good 10 line or less poems in his arsenal, Arthur Rimbaud- whose impact was more on the ‘cult of the poet’ than on the art form, Anna Akhmatova- whose import was more as ‘functional state treasure’ than persuasive writer, Allen Ginsberg- who has 12 or so great poems that showed new boundaries & subject matter could work in poetry, but also wrote a passel of utter doggerel, & Derek Walcott- who, despite early promise, has a body of banal poetry, yet opened the way for several generations of non-European poets’ poetry to find a Western audience. None of these poets will stand too tall in the coming centuries for their work, but- their impact on varied aspects of the art is undeniable. This is the difference between the 2. Greatness is about how much the art succeeds & stands alone, Import is on the non-artistic aspects of the work & poet. Of course, a 3rd category exists for those poets that were great & important. Whose excellence & import is undeniable. In this camp would reside John Donne- the 1st English language poet with a Modern mindset, if not vocabulary, Walt Whitman- whose work revolutionized subject matter, & led to the war against formalism, Charles Baudelaire- who did the same as Whitman in French, Stephane Mallarmé- whose fragmenting of form led directly to Eliot, but whose work has held up far better despite being older, Hart Crane- who created lyric epopee, & whose verse reached in new directions in new ways- cracking the ekstasis of poetry open & truly inventing the REAL Language poetry of the 20th Century, Marina Tsvetaeva & Sylvia Plath- the 2 women who became iconic Feminist heroines with legions of acolytes worldwide, yet wove together brilliant poetry despite mental illnesses, & Wallace Stevens- whose great poetry has given heart to legions of poetry lovers who appreciate games played with beauty & philosophy.

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...

Ummadığım için bir daha geri dönmeyi Varsın yetsin bu sözler Ve madem olan olmuştur, olmayacak yeniden Dilerim ağır kesilmez cezamız hüküm günü

Do I dare Disturb the universe? In a minute there is time For decision and revision which a minute will reverse. Var mı cesaretim Düzenini bozmaya âlemin? Hemen o an vaktidir işte Bir anda tersyüz olacak kararların, vazgeçişlerin.

Diyeceksin ki tekrar ediyorsun Evvelce söylediklerini. Bir daha söyleyeyim. Söyleyeyim mi bir daha? Oraya varmak, Olduğun yere ulaşmak, olmadığın yerden uzaklaşmak için, Vecdin uğramadığı bir yoldan geçip gitmelisin. Neyse o bilmediğin ona erişmek için İzlemelisin yolunu cehaletin. Senin olsun diye sahip olmadığın şey Malı mülkü terk edip öylece gitmelisin. Neyse olmadığın şey, erişmek için ona İçinde olmadığın bir yol izlemelisin. Bilmediğindir işte bildiğin yegâne şey Ve elinde tuttuğun sahip olmadığındır Ve olmadığın yerdir bulunduğun yer. ... sonumdadır başlangıcım.

... Kıymetini bilin Vaktin. Kıymetini bilin

Ey sükûtun Hanımefendisi Asude ve gamlı Lime lime ve yarasız beresiz Hatırlayışın gülü Unutkanlığın gülü Hem dermansız hem hayat bahşeden Güven içre kaygılı O yegâne Gül Bahçedir artık Cümle sevdanın son bulduğu Doyulamamış aşkın Azabını bitiren, O muazzam azabını Kana kana sevdanın, Bitimi, bitmeyene O bitimsiz yolculuğun, Ne varsa nihayetsiz Hepsinin nihayeti, Kelamsız söz Sözsüz kelam Şükürler olsun Anaya O bahçe için Cümle sevdanın sona erdiği.

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.

Home is where one starts from. As we grow older The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated Of dead and living. Not the intense moment Isolated, with no before and after, But a lifetime burning in every moment And not the lifetime of one man only But of old stones that cannot be deciphered. There is a time for the evening under starlight, A time for the evening under lamplight (The evening with the photograph album). Love is most nearly itself When here and now cease to matter. Old men ought to be explorers Here and there does not matter We must be still and still moving Into another intensity For a further union, a deeper communion Through the dark cold and the empty desolation, The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning.

Preserve me from the enemy who has something to gain: and from the friend who has something to lose.