The Waste Land | Page 5

low damp ground?And bones cast in a little low dry garret,?Rattled by the rat's foot only, year to year.?But at my back from time to time I hear?The sound of horns and motors, which shall bring?Sweeney to Mrs. Porter in the spring.?O the moon shone bright on Mrs. Porter?And on her daughter 200 They wash their feet in soda water?Et O ces voix d'enfants, chantant dans la coupole!
Twit twit twit?Jug jug jug jug jug jug?So rudely forc'd.?Tereu
Unreal City?Under the brown fog of a winter noon?Mr. Eugenides, the Smyrna merchant?Unshaven, with a pocket full of currants 210 C.i.f. London: documents at sight,?Asked me in demotic French?To luncheon at the Cannon Street Hotel?Followed by a weekend at the Metropole.
At the violet hour, when the eyes and back?Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits?Like a taxi throbbing waiting,?I Tiresias, though blind, throbbing between two lives,?Old man with wrinkled female breasts, can see?At the violet hour, the evening hour that strives 220 Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea,?The typist home at teatime, clears her breakfast, lights?Her stove, and lays out food in tins.?Out of the window perilously spread?Her drying combinations touched by the sun's last rays,?On the divan are piled (at night her bed)?Stockings, slippers, camisoles, and stays.?I Tiresias, old man with wrinkled dugs?Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest -?I too awaited the expected guest. 230 He, the young man carbuncular, arrives,?A small house agent's clerk, with one bold stare,?One of the low on whom assurance sits?As a silk hat on a Bradford millionaire.?The time is now propitious, as he guesses,?The meal is ended, she is bored and tired,?Endeavours to engage her in caresses?Which still are unreproved, if undesired.?Flushed and decided, he assaults at once;?Exploring hands encounter no defence; 240 His vanity requires no response,?And makes a welcome of indifference.?(And I Tiresias have foresuffered all?Enacted on this same divan or bed;?I who have sat by Thebes below the wall?And walked among the lowest of the dead.)?Bestows one final patronising kiss,?And gropes his way, finding the stairs unlit . . .
She turns and looks a moment in the glass,?Hardly aware of her departed lover; 250 Her brain allows one half-formed thought to pass:?"Well now that's done: and I'm glad it's over."?When lovely woman stoops to folly and?Paces about her room again, alone,?She smoothes her hair with automatic hand,?And puts a record on the gramophone.
"This music crept by me upon the waters"?And along the Strand, up Queen Victoria Street.?O City city, I can sometimes hear?Beside a public bar in Lower Thames Street, 260 The pleasant whining of a mandoline?And a clatter and a chatter from within?Where fishmen lounge at noon: where the walls?Of Magnus Martyr hold?Inexplicable splendour of Ionian white and gold.
The river sweats?Oil and tar?The barges drift?With the turning tide?Red sails 270 Wide?To leeward, swing on the heavy spar.?The barges wash?Drifting logs?Down Greenwich reach?Past the Isle of Dogs.
Weialala leia?Wallala leialala
Elizabeth and Leicester?Beating oars 280 The stern was formed?A gilded shell?Red and gold?The brisk swell?Rippled both shores?Southwest wind?Carried down stream?The peal of bells?White towers
Weialala leia 290 Wallala leialala
"Trams and dusty trees.?Highbury bore me. Richmond and Kew?Undid me. By Richmond I raised my knees?Supine on the floor of a narrow canoe."
"My feet are at Moorgate, and my heart?Under my feet. After the event?He wept. He promised 'a new start'.?I made no comment. What should I resent?"?"On Margate Sands. 300 I can connect?Nothing with nothing.?The broken fingernails of dirty hands.?My people humble people who expect?Nothing."
la la
To Carthage then I came
Burning burning burning burning?O Lord Thou pluckest me out?O Lord Thou pluckest 310
burning
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, 320
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.
V. WHAT THE THUNDER SAID
After the torchlight red on sweaty faces?After the frosty silence in the gardens?After the agony in stony places?The shouting and the crying?Prison and palace and reverberation?Of thunder of spring over distant mountains?He who was living is now dead?We who were living are now dying?With a little patience 330
Here is no water but only rock?Rock and no water and the sandy road?The road winding above among the mountains?Which are mountains of rock without water?If there were water we should