Prufrock and Other Observations | Page 4

you all"--?If one, settling a pillow by her head,?Should say: "That is not what I meant at all;?That is not it, at all."
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?--?It is impossible to say just what I mean I?But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen: Would it have been worth while?If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,?And turning toward the window, should say:?"That is not it at all,?That is not what I meant, at all."

No I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;?Am an attendant lord, one that will do?To swell a progress, start a scene or two,?Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,?Deferential, glad to be of use,?Politic, cautious, and meticulous;?Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;?At times, indeed, almost ridiculous--?Almost, at times, the Fool.
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.
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.
Portrait of a Lady
Thou hast committed--?Fornication: but that was in another country,?And besides, the wench is dead.
The Jew Of Malta
I
Among the smoke and fog of a December afternoon?You have the scene arrange itself--as it will seem to do--?With "I have saved this afternoon for you";?And four wax candles in the darkened room,?Four rings of light upon the ceiling overhead,?An atmosphere of Juliet’s tomb?Prepared for all the things to be said, or left unsaid.?We have been, let us say, to hear the latest Pole?Transmit the Preludes, through his hair and finger tips.?"So intimate, this Chopin, that I think his soul?Should be resurrected only among friends?Some two or three, who will not touch the bloom?That is rubbed and questioned in the concert room."?--And so the conversation slips?Among velleities and carefully caught regrets?Through attenuated tones of violins?Mingled with remote cornets?And begins.
"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!"?Among the windings of the violins?And the ariettes?Of cracked cornets?Inside my brain a dull tom-tom begins?Absurdly hammering a prelude of its own,?Capricious monotone?That is at least one definite "false note."?--Let us take the air, in a tobacco trance,?Admire the monuments?Discuss the late events,?Correct our watches by the public clocks.?Then sit for half an hour and drink our bocks.
II
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.?"Yet with these April sunsets, that somehow recall?My buried life, and Paris in the Spring?feel immeasurably at peace, and find the world?To be wonderful and youthful, after all."
The voice returns like the insistent out-of-tune?Of a broken violin on an August afternoon:?"I am always sure that you understand?My feelings, always sure that you feel,?Sure that across the gulf you reach your hand.
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.
I shall sit here, serving tea to friends...."
I take my hat: how can I make a cowardly amends?For what she has said to me??You will see me any morning in the park?Reading the comics and the sporting page.?Particularly I remark?An English countess goes upon the stage.?A Greek was murdered at a Polish dance,?Another bank defaulter has confessed.?I keep my countenance,?I remain self-possessed?Except when a street piano, mechanical and tired?Reiterates