Section 1

Gerontion

Thou hast nor youth nor age

But as it were an after dinner sleep

Dreaming of both.

Here I am, an old man in a dry month,

Being read to by a boy, waiting for rain.

I was neither at the hot gates

Nor fought in the warm rain

Nor knee deep in the salt marsh, heaving a cutlass,

Bitten by flies, fought.

My house is a decayed house,

And the jew squats on the window sill, the owner,

Spawned in some estaminet of Antwerp,

Blistered in Brussels, patched and peeled in London.

The goat coughs at night in the field overhead;

Rocks, moss, stonecrop, iron, merds.

The woman keeps the kitchen, makes tea,

Sneezes at evening, poking the peevish gutter.

I an old man,

A dull head among windy spaces.

Signs are taken for wonders. "We would see a sign":

The word within a word, unable to speak a word,

Swaddled with darkness. In the juvescence of the year

Came Christ the tiger

In depraved May, dogwood and chestnut, flowering Judas,

To be eaten, to be divided, to be drunk

Among whispers; by Mr. Silvero

With caressing hands, at Limoges

Who walked all night in the next room;

By Hakagawa, bowing among the Titians;

By Madame de Tornquist, in the dark room

Shifting the candles; Fraulein von Kulp

Who turned in the hall, one hand on the door. Vacant shuttles

Weave the wind. I have no ghosts,

An old man in a draughty house

Under a windy knob.

After such knowledge, what forgiveness? Think now

History has many cunning passages, contrived corridors

And issues, deceives with whispering ambitions,

Guides us by vanities. Think now

She gives when our attention is distracted

And what she gives, gives with such supple confusions

That the giving famishes the craving. Gives too late

What's not believed in, or if still believed,

In memory only, reconsidered passion. Gives too soon

Into weak hands, what's thought can be dispensed with

Till the refusal propagates a fear. Think

Neither fear nor courage saves us. Unnatural vices

Are fathered by our heroism. Virtues

Are forced upon us by our impudent crimes.

These tears are shaken from the wrath-bearing tree.

The tiger springs in the new year. Us he devours. Think at last

We have not reached conclusion, when I

Stiffen in a rented house. Think at last

I have not made this show purposelessly

And it is not by any concitation

Of the backward devils.

I would meet you upon this honestly.

I that was near your heart was removed therefrom

To lose beauty in terror, terror in inquisition.

I have lost my passion: why should I need to keep it

Since what is kept must be adulterated?

I have lost my sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch:

How should I use it for your closer contact?

These with a thousand small deliberations

Protract the profit of their chilled delirium,

Excite the membrane, when the sense has cooled,

With pungent sauces, multiply variety

In a wilderness of mirrors. What will the spider do,

Suspend its operations, will the weevil

Delay? De Bailhache, Fresca, Mrs. Cammel, whirled

Beyond the circuit of the shuddering Bear

In fractured atoms. Gull against the wind, in the windy straits

Of Belle Isle, or running on the Horn,

White feathers in the snow, the Gulf claims,

And an old man driven by the Trades

To a sleepy corner.

Tenants of the house,

Thoughts of a dry brain in a dry season.

Burbank with a Baedeker: Bleistein with a Cigar

Tra-la-la-la-la-la-laire—nil nisi divinum stabile

est; caetera fumus—the gondola stopped, the old

palace was there, how charming its grey and pink—

goats and monkeys, with such hair too!—so the

countess passed on until she came through the

little park, where Niobe presented her with a

cabinet, and so departed.

Burbank crossed a little bridge

Descending at a small hotel;

Princess Volupine arrived,

They were together, and he fell.

Defunctive music under sea

Passed seaward with the passing bell

Slowly: the God Hercules

Had left him, that had loved him well.

The horses, under the axletree

Beat up the dawn from Istria

With even feet. Her shuttered barge

Burned on the water all the day.

But this or such was Bleistein's way:

A saggy bending of the knees

And elbows, with the palms turned out,

Chicago Semite Viennese.

A lustreless protrusive eye

Stares from the protozoic slime

At a perspective of Canaletto.

The smoky candle end of time

Declines. On the Rialto once.

The rats are underneath the piles.

The jew is underneath the lot.

Money in furs. The boatman smiles,

Princess Volupine extends

A meagre, blue-nailed, phthisic hand

To climb the waterstair. Lights, lights,

She entertains Sir Ferdinand

Klein. Who clipped the lion's wings

And flea'd his rump and pared his claws?

Thought Burbank, meditating on

Time's ruins, and the seven laws.

Sweeney Erect

And the trees about me,

Let them be dry and leafless; let the rocks

Groan with continual surges; and behind me

Make all a desolation. Look, look, wenches!

Paint me a cavernous waste shore

Cast in the unstilted Cyclades,

Paint me the bold anfractuous rocks

Faced by the snarled and yelping seas.

Display me Aeolus above

Reviewing the insurgent gales

Which tangle Ariadne's hair

And swell with haste the perjured sails.

Morning stirs the feet and hands

(Nausicaa and Polypheme),

Gesture of orang-outang

Rises from the sheets in steam.

This withered root of knots of hair

Slitted below and gashed with eyes,

This oval O cropped out with teeth:

The sickle motion from the thighs

Jackknifes upward at the knees

Then straightens out from heel to hip

Pushing the framework of the bed

And clawing at the pillow slip.

Sweeney addressed full length to shave

Broadbottomed, pink from nape to base,

Knows the female temperament

And wipes the suds around his face.

(The lengthened shadow of a man

Is history, said Emerson

Who had not seen the silhouette

Of Sweeney straddled in the sun).

Tests the razor on his leg

Waiting until the shriek subsides.

The epileptic on the bed

Curves backward, clutching at her sides.

The ladies of the corridor

Find themselves involved, disgraced,

Call witness to their principles

And deprecate the lack of taste

Observing that hysteria

Might easily be misunderstood;

Mrs. Turner intimates

It does the house no sort of good.

But Doris, towelled from the bath,

Enters padding on broad feet,

Bringing sal volatile

And a glass of brandy neat.

A Cooking Egg

En l'an trentiesme de mon aage

Que toutes mes hontes j'ay beucs ...

Pipit sate upright in her chair

Some distance from where I was sitting;

Views of the Oxford Colleges

Lay on the table, with the knitting.

Daguerreotypes and silhouettes,

Her grandfather and great great aunts,

Supported on the mantelpiece

An Invitation to the Dance.

. . . . . .

I shall not want Honour in Heaven

For I shall meet Sir Philip Sidney

And have talk with Coriolanus

And other heroes of that kidney.

I shall not want Capital in Heaven

For I shall meet Sir Alfred Mond:

We two shall lie together, lapt

In a five per cent Exchequer Bond.

I shall not want Society in Heaven,

Lucretia Borgia shall be my Bride;

Her anecdotes will be more amusing

Than Pipit's experience could provide.

I shall not want Pipit in Heaven:

Madame Blavatsky will instruct me

In the Seven Sacred Trances;

Piccarda de Donati will conduct me ...

. . . . . .

But where is the penny world I bought

To eat with Pipit behind the screen?

The red-eyed scavengers are creeping

From Kentish Town and Golder's Green;

Where are the eagles and the trumpets?

Buried beneath some snow-deep Alps.

Over buttered scones and crumpets

Weeping, weeping multitudes

Droop in a hundred A.B.C.'s

["ABC's" signifes endemic teashops, found in all parts of

London. The initials signify "Aerated Bread Company,

Limited."—Project Gutenberg Editor's replacement of

original footnote]

Le Directeur

Malheur à la malheureuse Tamise!

Tamisel Qui coule si pres du Spectateur.

Le directeur

Conservateur

Du Spectateur

Empeste la brise.

Les actionnaires

Réactionnaires

Du Spectateur

Conservateur

Bras dessus bras dessous

Font des tours

A pas de loup.

Dans un égout

Une petite fille

En guenilles

Camarde

Regarde

Le directeur

Du Spectateur

Conservateur

Et crève d'amour.

Mélange adultère de tout

En Amerique, professeur;

En Angleterre, journaliste;

C'est à grands pas et en sueur

Que vous suivrez à peine ma piste.

En Yorkshire, conferencier;

A Londres, un peu banquier,

Vous me paierez bien la tête.

C'est à Paris que je me coiffe

Casque noir de jemenfoutiste.

En Allemagne, philosophe

Surexcité par Emporheben

Au grand air de Bergsteigleben;

J'erre toujours de-ci de-là

A divers coups de tra la la

De Damas jusqu'à Omaha.

Je celebrai mon jour de fête

Dans une oasis d'Afrique

Vêtu d'une peau de girafe.

On montrera mon cénotaphe

Aux côtes brûlantes de Mozambique.

Lune de Miel

Ils ont vu les Pays-Bas, ils rentrent à Terre Haute;

Mais une nuit d'été, les voici à Ravenne,

A l'sur le dos écartant les genoux

De quatre jambes molles tout gonflées de morsures.

On relève le drap pour mieux égratigner.

Moins d'une lieue d'ici est Saint Apollinaire

In Classe, basilique connue des amateurs

De chapitaux d'acanthe que touraoie le vent.

Ils vont prendre le train de huit heures

Prolonger leurs misères de Padoue à Milan

Ou se trouvent le Cène, et un restaurant pas cher.

Lui pense aux pourboires, et redige son bilan.

Ils auront vu la Suisse et traversé la France.

Et Saint Apollinaire, raide et ascétique,

Vieille usine désaffectée de Dieu, tient encore

Dans ses pierres ècroulantes la forme precise de Byzance.

The Hippopotamus

Similiter et omnes revereantur Diaconos, ut

mandatum Jesu Christi; et Episcopum, ut Jesum

Christum, existentem filium Patris; Presbyteros

autem, ut concilium Dei et conjunctionem

Apostolorum. Sine his Ecclesia non vocatur; de

quibus suadeo vos sic habeo.

S. IGNATII AD TRALLIANOS.

And when this epistle is read among you, cause

that it be read also in the church of the

Laodiceans.

The broad-backed hippopotamus

Rests on his belly in the mud;

Although he seems so firm to us

He is merely flesh and blood.

Flesh-and-blood is weak and frail,

Susceptible to nervous shock;

While the True Church can never fail

For it is based upon a rock.

The hippo's feeble steps may err

In compassing material ends,

While the True Church need never stir

To gather in its dividends.

The 'potamus can never reach

The mango on the mango-tree;

But fruits of pomegranate and peach

Refresh the Church from over sea.

At mating time the hippo's voice

Betrays inliexions hoarse and odd,

But every week we hear rejoice

The Church, at being one with God.

The hippopotamus's day

Is passed in sleep; at night he hunts;

God works in a mysterious way-

The Church can sleep and feed at once.

I saw the 'potamus take wing

Ascending from the damp savannas,

And quiring angels round him sing

The praise of God, in loud hosannas.

Blood of the Lamb shall wash him clean

And him shall heavenly arms enfold,

Among the saints he shall be seen

Performing on a harp of gold.

He shall be washed as white as snow,

By all the martyr'd virgins kiss,

While the True Church remains below

Wrapt in the old miasmal mist.

Dans le Restaurant

Le garcon délabré qui n'a rien à faire

Que de se gratter les doigts et se pencher sur mon épaule:

"Dans mon pays il fera temps pluvieux,

Du vent, du grand soleil, et de la pluie;

C'est ce qu'on appelle le jour de lessive des gueux."

(Bavard, baveux, à la croupe arrondie,

Je te prie, au moins, ne bave pas dans la soupe).

"Les saules trempés, et des bourgeons sur les ronces—

C'est là, dans une averse, qu'on s'abrite.

J'avais septtans, elle était plus petite.

Elle etait toute mouillée, je lui ai donné des primavères."

Les tâches de son gilet montent au chiffre de trente-huit.

"Je la chatouillais, pour la faire rire.

J'éprouvais un instant de puissance et de délire.

Mais alors, vieux lubrique, a cet âge ...

"Monsieur, le fait est dur.

Il est venu, nous peloter, un gros chien;

Moi j'avais peur, je l'ai quittee a mi-chemin.

C'est dommage."

Mais alors, tu as ton vautour!

Va t'en te décrotter les rides du visage;

Tiens, ma fourchette, décrasse-toi le crâne.

De quel droit payes-tu des expériences comme moi?

Tiens, voilà dix sous, pour la salle-de-bains.

Phlébas, le Phénicien, pendant quinze jours noyé,

Oubliait les cris des mouettes et la houle de Cornouaille,

Et les profits et les pertes, et la cargaison d'etain:

Un courant de sous-mer l'emporta tres loin,

Le repassant aux étapes de sa vie antérieure.

Figurez-vous donc, c'etait un sort penible;

Cependant, ce fut jadis un bel homme, de haute taille.

Whispers of Immortality

Webster was much possessed by death

And saw the skull beneath the skin;

And breastless creatures under ground

Leaned backward with a lipless grin.

Daffodil bulbs instead of balls

Stared from the sockets of the eyes!

He knew that thought clings round dead limbs

Tightening its lusts and luxuries.

Donne, I suppose, was such another

Who found no substitute for sense;

To seize and clutch and penetrate,

Expert beyond experience,

He knew the anguish of the marrow

The ague of the skeleton;

No contact possible to flesh

Allayed the fever of the bone.

. . . . .

Grishkin is nice: her

Russian eye is underlined for emphasis;

Uncorseted, her friendly bust

Gives promise of pneumatic bliss.

The couched Brazilian jaguar

Compels the scampering marmoset

With subtle effluence of cat;

Grishkin has a maisonette;

The sleek Brazilian jaguar

Does not in its arboreal gloom

Distil so rank a feline smell

As Grishkin in a drawing-room.

And even the Abstract Entities

Circumambulate her charm;

But our lot crawls between dry ribs

To keep our metaphysics warm.

Mr. Eliot's Sunday Morning Service

Look, look, master, here comes two religions

caterpillars.

The Jew of Malta.

Polyphiloprogenitive

The sapient sutlers of the Lord

Drift across the window-panes.

In the beginning was the Word.

In the beginning was the Word.

Superfetation of [Greek text inserted here],

And at the mensual turn of time

Produced enervate Origen.

A painter of the Umbrian school

Designed upon a gesso ground

The nimbus of the Baptized God.

The wilderness is cracked and browned

But through the water pale and thin

Still shine the unoffending feet

And there above the painter set

The Father and the Paraclete.

. . . . .

The sable presbyters approach

The avenue of penitence;

The young are red and pustular

Clutching piaculative pence.

Under the penitential gates

Sustained by staring Seraphim

Where the souls of the devout

Burn invisible and dim.

Along the garden-wall the bees

With hairy bellies pass between

The staminate and pistilate,

Blest office of the epicene.

Sweeney shifts from ham to ham

Stirring the water in his bath.

The masters of the subtle schools

Are controversial, polymath.

Sweeney Among the Nightingales

[Greek text inserted here]

Apeneck Sweeney spreads his knees

Letting his arms hang down to laugh,

The zebra stripes along his jaw

Swelling to maculate giraffe.

The circles of the stormy moon

Slide westward toward the River Plate,

Death and the Raven drift above

And Sweeney guards the horned gate.

Gloomy Orion and the Dog

Are veiled; and hushed the shrunken seas;

The person in the Spanish cape

Tries to sit on Sweeney's knees

Slips and pulls the table cloth

Overturns a coffee-cup,

Reorganized upon the floor

She yawns and draws a stocking up;

The silent man in mocha brown

Sprawls at the window-sill and gapes;

The waiter brings in oranges

Bananas figs and hothouse grapes;

The silent vertebrate in brown

Contracts and concentrates, withdraws;

Rachel née Rabinovitch

Tears at the grapes with murderous paws;

She and the lady in the cape

Are suspect, thought to be in league;

Therefore the man with heavy eyes

Declines the gambit, shows fatigue,

Leaves the room and reappears

Outside the window, leaning in,

Branches of wisteria

Circumscribe a golden grin;

The host with someone indistinct

Converses at the door apart,

The nightingales are singing near

The Convent of the Sacred Heart,

And sang within the bloody wood

When Agamemnon cried aloud,

And let their liquid droppings fall

To stain the stiff dishonoured shroud.