Prufrock and Other Observations | Page 4

would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the
marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you

and me,
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 toward some overwhelming question,
To say: "I am Lazarus,
come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell 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