The Waste Land | Page 6

stop and drink?Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think?Sweat is dry and feet are in the sand?If there were only water amongst the rock?Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit?Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit 340 There is not even silence in the mountains?But dry sterile thunder without rain?There is not even solitude in the mountains?But red sullen faces sneer and snarl?From doors of mudcracked houses
If there were water And no rock?If there were rock?And also water?And water 350 A spring?A pool among the rock?If there were the sound of water only?Not the cicada?And dry grass singing?But sound of water over a rock?Where the hermit-thrush sings in the pine trees?Drip drop drip drop drop drop drop?But there is no water
Who is the third who walks always beside you? 360 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?
What is that sound high in the air?Murmur of maternal lamentation?Who are those hooded hordes swarming?Over endless plains, stumbling in cracked earth 370 Ringed by the flat horizon only?What is the city over the mountains?Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air?Falling towers?Jerusalem Athens Alexandria?Vienna London?Unreal
A woman drew her long black hair out tight?And fiddled whisper music on those strings?And bats with baby faces in the violet light 380 Whistled, and beat their wings?And crawled head downward down a blackened wall?And upside down in air were towers?Tolling reminiscent bells, that kept the hours?And voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells.
In this decayed hole among the mountains?In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing?Over the tumbled graves, about the chapel?There is the empty chapel, only the wind's home.?It has no windows, and the door swings, 390 Dry bones can harm no one.?Only a cock stood on the rooftree?Co co rico co co rico?In a flash of lightning. Then a damp gust?Bringing rain
Ganga was sunken, and the limp leaves?Waited for rain, while the black clouds?Gathered far distant, over Himavant.?The jungle crouched, humped in silence.?Then spoke the thunder 400 DA?Datta: what have we given??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 410 DA?Dayadhvam: I have heard the key?Turn in the door once and turn once only?We think of the key, each in his prison?Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison?Only at nightfall, aetherial rumours?Revive for a moment a broken Coriolanus?DA?Damyata: The boat responded?Gaily, to the hand expert with sail and oar 420 The sea was calm, your heart would have responded?Gaily, when invited, beating obedient?To controlling hands
I sat upon the shore?Fishing, with the arid plain behind me?Shall I at least set my lands in order??London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down?Poi s'ascose nel foco che gli affina?Quando fiam ceu chelidon - O swallow swallow?Le Prince d'Aquitaine a la tour abolie 430 These fragments I have shored against my ruins?Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo's mad againe.?Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.
Shantih shantih shantih
Line 416 aetherial] aethereal?Line 429 ceu] uti - Editor
NOTES ON "THE WASTE LAND"
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 (Macmillan).<1> Indeed,?so deeply am I indebted, Miss Weston's book will elucidate?the difficulties of the poem much better than my notes can do; and I recommend it (apart from the great interest of the book itself) to any who think such elucidation of the poem worth the trouble. To another work of anthropology I am indebted in general, one which has influenced our generation profoundly; I mean The Golden Bough; I have used especially the two volumes Adonis, Attis, Osiris. Anyone who is acquainted with these works will immediately recognise in the poem certain references to vegetation ceremonies.
<1> Macmillan] Cambridge.
I. THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD
Line 20. Cf. Ezekiel 2:1.
23. Cf. Ecclesiastes 12:5.
31. V. Tristan und Isolde, i, verses 5-8.
42. Id. iii, verse 24.
46. I am not familiar with the exact constitution of the Tarot pack of cards, from which I have obviously departed to suit my own convenience. The Hanged Man, a member of the traditional pack, fits my purpose in two ways: because he is associated in my mind with the Hanged God of Frazer, and because I associate him with the hooded figure in the passage of the disciples to Emmaus in Part V. The Phoenician Sailor