T S Eliot

[Fljotsdale]

(The opening verse is from Dante's Inferno.
Roughly translated, it reads:

"If I thought my answer were to one who would ever return to the world,
This flame should stay quiescent;
But since none ever returned alive from this depth,
If what I hear is true,
I answer thee without fear of infamy."

Dante, canto 27: Inferno. Lines 61-66

Probably my favourite poem EVER.

T.S. Eliot (1888–1965). 1917.

1. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock


S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero,
Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.

LET us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question …
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

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.

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 a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—
[They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”]
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—
[They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”]
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

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?

And I have known the arms already, known them all—
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]
It is perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?
. . . . .
Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?…

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
. . . . .
And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep … tired … or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
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,
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,
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!
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.

[linda_lakeside]

Hi Fljots,

What a poem. It is just splendid, isn't it?? Amazing that someone could write like that. Truly great. Thanks for dragging it all the way down here!

Linda.

[Fljotsdale]

Heh! I love it. Prufrock, in many ways, is me, LOL!

[deda]

Wonderful poem. Thanks for posting. I haven't read it for a long time

[st theresa]

TS Eliot keeps popping up in relation to leonard--is it any wonder. I am reposting here a lovely quote about the concert in St. John's by Anne Porter

"At the still point of the of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is...
T.S.Eliot

I never thought I would invoke the words of another poet to describe Leonard Cohen, but something happened to me when the first chord was struck at the Holy Heart show last night. I expected to be excited, in an adrenaline-rush kind of way. Instead, I was stilled.

I felt a deep calm spread though me, "a loosen[ing] of the high silver nerves", like total body acupuncture. I, a woman whose daughter has to shush her to stop her singing along at concerts, suddenly felt no need to sing. Leonard, the angels, the band were singing for me, singing through me, singing through us. Magically, there was no longer any me, or us or them. From the soles of our feet to the crowns of our heads, to the rafters and beyond, the music resonated, as though we were a collective instrument being tuned to a secret chord, a universal harmony. We were at the still point, and the world was spinning around us. Wrapt--wrapped in music--enraptured, I could feel my heart opening, "like a lily in the heat"

(Forgive the hyperbole: every word is honestly meant. My prose could wax even more purple: the words "spiritual orgasm" come to mind...)

I said,"Until now, I didn't know perfection was possible."
My friend said, "There is a crack in everything. How else would the light get in?"

Though I can find no cracks in last night's performance, it was truly suffused with light and so, now, are we. "

[moutipouti]

I absolutely adore that poem!

This is another beautiful T.S. Eliot poem that hangs in my kitchen.

A DEDICATION 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 whose bodies smell of each other
Who think the same thoughts without need of speech,
And babble the same speech without need of meaning...

No peevish winter wind shall chill
No sullen tropic sun shall wither
The roses in the rose-garden which is ours and ours only

But this dedication is for others to read:
These are private words addressed to you in public.


Oh, and the kitchen-wife connexion is unintended.

[linda_lakeside]

That was a beautiful perception of your experience, St. Theresa. I can see the T.S. Eliot connection, but your entire post nearly put me in the seat next to you. It seems as though the evening was that, not only of music, but of a spiritual bonding. You're very lucky to have had that experience, and articulated what I'm sure everyone else has felt at his concerts.

Thank you for the insight.

Linda.

[mat james]

I'm a fan of T.S Eliot as well, but I noticed that he pinched that wonderful line about "the still point of the turning world" from Plotinus ( Enneads) and (to my knowledge) never acknowledged it.
Plotinus, apparently, was also an inspiration to/for Dante.
Plotinus also erupts in Leonard's work, I sense, at times, particularly in his more mystical moments.

"Plotinus’s Enneads present the doctrine that there is a First Principle of reality for all other reality, and that this First Principle of reality is a oneness or unity which transcends all Being."

(http://www.angelfire.com/md2/timewarp/plotinus.html)

Quite a chap is ol' Plotinus ! ((around 250 A.D.) He is worth a read.

Matj

[lonndubh]

I'm a fan of T.S Eliot as well, but I noticed that he pinched that wonderful line about "the still point of the turning world" from Plotinus ( Anneads) and (to my knowledge) never acknowledged it
Matj

He may have whispered to someone
250 AD No harm in immersing a line or two in a new personality
And remembering the great Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitszn who also took inspiration from Dante's Inferno with his book called The First Circle.

[st theresa]

Hi Linda
I just saw your post and blushed. I should have bolded the quote in my note--It was Anne Porter,not myself who wrote that wonderful description of her experience--I subsequently noted this thread on TS Eliot and thought the participants would appreciate having their attention drawn to it. I was very moved by Anne's description as well.

[linda_lakeside]

Oh, St. Theresa, it is I that blushes~ I should have read more carefully your first line - but simply skipped to the review of the show. I've long been guilty of that terrible habit, of not reading 'every single thing' in the previous post. This is not the first time I've been embarrassed by my inattention to detail. But, I say: "Thank you for posting her experience." It is likely the most poignant piece I've read thus far. Thanks for bringing it along with you~

Linda.