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<h2>T. S. Eliot</h2> |
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<h1>The Waste Land</h1> |
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<p class="epigraph">“Nam Sibyllam quidem Cumis ego ipse oculis meis vidi in ampulla pendere, et cum illi pueri dicerent: Σίβυλλα τί θέλεις; respondebat illa: ἀποθανεῖν θέλω.”</p> |
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<p class="dedication">For Ezra Pound<br/> |
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<i>il miglior fabbro.</i> |
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</p> |
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<h2>I. The Burial of the Dead</h2> |
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<pre xml:space="preserve"> |
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April is the cruellest month, breeding |
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Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing |
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Memory and desire, stirring |
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Dull roots with spring rain. |
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Winter kept us warm, covering |
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Earth in forgetful snow, feeding |
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A little life with dried tubers. |
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Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee |
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With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade, |
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And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten, |
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And drank coffee, and talked for an hour. |
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Bin gar keine Russin, stamm’ aus Litauen, echt deutsch. |
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And when we were children, staying at the archduke’s, |
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My cousin’s, he took me out on a sled, |
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And I was frightened. He said, Marie, |
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Marie, hold on tight. And down we went. |
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In the mountains, there you feel free. |
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I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter. |
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What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow |
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Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man, |
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You cannot say, or guess, for you know only |
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A heap of broken images, where the sun beats, |
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And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief, |
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And the dry stone no sound of water. Only |
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There is shadow under this red rock, |
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(Come in under the shadow of this red rock), |
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And I will show you something different from either |
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Your shadow at morning striding behind you |
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Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you; |
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I will show you fear in a handful of dust. |
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<i>Frisch weht der Wind |
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Der Heimat zu |
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Mein Irisch Kind, |
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Wo weilest du?</i> |
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“You gave me hyacinths first a year ago; |
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“They called me the hyacinth girl.” |
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—Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden, |
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Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not |
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Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither |
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Living nor dead, and I knew nothing, |
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Looking into the heart of light, the silence. |
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<i>Oed’ und leer das Meer</i>. |
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Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante, |
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Had a bad cold, nevertheless |
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Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe, |
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With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she, |
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Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor, |
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(Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!) |
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Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks, |
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The lady of situations. |
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Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel, |
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And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card, |
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Which is blank, is something he carries on his back, |
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Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find |
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The Hanged Man. Fear death by water. |
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I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring. |
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Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone, |
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Tell her I bring the horoscope myself: |
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One must be so careful these days. |
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Unreal City, |
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Under the brown fog of a winter dawn, |
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A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many, |
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I had not thought death had undone so many. |
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Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled, |
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And each man fixed his eyes before his feet. |
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Flowed up the hill and down King William Street, |
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To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours |
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With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine. |
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There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying “Stetson! |
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“You who were with me in the ships at Mylae! |
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“That corpse you planted last year in your garden, |
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“Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year? |
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“Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed? |
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“Oh keep the Dog far hence, that’s friend to men, |
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“Or with his nails he’ll dig it up again! |
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“You! hypocrite lecteur!—mon semblable,—mon frère!” |
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</pre> |
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<h2>II. A Game of Chess</h2> |
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<pre xml:space="preserve"> |
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The Chair she sat in, like a burnished throne, |
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Glowed on the marble, where the glass |
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Held up by standards wrought with fruited vines |
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From which a golden Cupidon peeped out |
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(Another hid his eyes behind his wing) |
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Doubled the flames of sevenbranched candelabra |
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Reflecting light upon the table as |
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The glitter of her jewels rose to meet it, |
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From satin cases poured in rich profusion. |
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In vials of ivory and coloured glass |
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Unstoppered, lurked her strange synthetic perfumes, |
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Unguent, powdered, or liquid—troubled, confused |
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And drowned the sense in odours; stirred by the air |
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That freshened from the window, these ascended |
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In fattening the prolonged candle-flames, |
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Flung their smoke into the laquearia, |
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Stirring the pattern on the coffered ceiling. |
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Huge sea-wood fed with copper |
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Burned green and orange, framed by the coloured stone, |
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In which sad light a carvèd dolphin swam. |
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Above the antique mantel was displayed |
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As though a window gave upon the sylvan scene |
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The change of Philomel, by the barbarous king |
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So rudely forced; yet there the nightingale |
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Filled all the desert with inviolable voice |
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And still she cried, and still the world pursues, |
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“Jug Jug” to dirty ears. |
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And other withered stumps of time |
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Were told upon the walls; staring forms |
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Leaned out, leaning, hushing the room enclosed. |
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Footsteps shuffled on the stair. |
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Under the firelight, under the brush, her hair |
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Spread out in fiery points |
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Glowed into words, then would be savagely still. |
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“My nerves are bad to-night. Yes, bad. Stay with me. |
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“Speak to me. Why do you never speak. Speak. |
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“What are you thinking of? What thinking? What? |
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“I never know what you are thinking. Think.” |
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I think we are in rats’ alley |
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Where the dead men lost their bones. |
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“What is that noise?” |
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The wind under the door. |
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“What is that noise now? What is the wind doing?” |
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Nothing again nothing. |
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“Do |
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“You know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember |
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“Nothing?” |
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I remember |
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Those are pearls that were his eyes. |
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“Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your head?” |
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But |
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O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag— |
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It’s so elegant |
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So intelligent |
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“What shall I do now? What shall I do?” |
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I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street |
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“With my hair down, so. What shall we do tomorrow? |
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“What shall we ever do?” |
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The hot water at ten. |
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And if it rains, a closed car at four. |
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And we shall play a game of chess, |
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Pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a knock upon the door. |
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When Lil’s husband got demobbed, I said— |
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I didn’t mince my words, I said to her myself, |
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<small>HURRY UP PLEASE IT’S TIME</small> |
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Now Albert’s coming back, make yourself a bit smart. |
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He’ll want to know what you done with that money he gave you |
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To get yourself some teeth. He did, I was there. |
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You have them all out, Lil, and get a nice set, |
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He said, I swear, I can’t bear to look at you. |
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And no more can’t I, I said, and think of poor Albert, |
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He’s been in the army four years, he wants a good time, |
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And if you don’t give it him, there’s others will, I said. |
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Oh is there, she said. Something o’ that, I said. |
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Then I’ll know who to thank, she said, and give me a straight look. |
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<small>HURRY UP PLEASE IT’S TIME</small> |
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If you don’t like it you can get on with it, I said. |
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Others can pick and choose if you can’t. |
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But if Albert makes off, it won’t be for lack of telling. |
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You ought to be ashamed, I said, to look so antique. |
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(And her only thirty-one.) |
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I can’t help it, she said, pulling a long face, |
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It’s them pills I took, to bring it off, she said. |
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(She’s had five already, and nearly died of young George.) |
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The chemist said it would be all right, but I’ve never been the same. |
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You <i>are</i> a proper fool, I said. |
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Well, if Albert won’t leave you alone, there it is, I said, |
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What you get married for if you don’t want children? |
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<small>HURRY UP PLEASE IT’S TIME</small> |
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Well, that Sunday Albert was home, they had a hot gammon, |
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And they asked me in to dinner, to get the beauty of it hot— |
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<small>HURRY UP PLEASE IT’S TIME</small> |
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<small>HURRY UP PLEASE IT’S TIME</small> |
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Goonight Bill. Goonight Lou. Goonight May. Goonight. |
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Ta ta. Goonight. Goonight. |
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Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night. |
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</pre> |
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<h2>III. The Fire Sermon</h2> |
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<pre xml:space="preserve"> |
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The river’s tent is broken: the last fingers of leaf |
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Clutch and sink into the wet bank. The wind |
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Crosses the brown land, unheard. The nymphs are departed. |
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Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song. |
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The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers, |
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Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends |
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Or other testimony of summer nights. The nymphs are departed. |
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And their friends, the loitering heirs of city directors; |
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Departed, have left no addresses. |
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By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept . . . |
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Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song, |
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Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or long. |
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But at my back in a cold blast I hear |
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The rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear. |
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A rat crept softly through the vegetation |
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Dragging its slimy belly on the bank |
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While I was fishing in the dull canal |
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On a winter evening round behind the gashouse |
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Musing upon the king my brother’s wreck |
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And on the king my father’s death before him. |
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White bodies naked on the low damp ground |
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And bones cast in a little low dry garret, |
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Rattled by the rat’s foot only, year to year. |
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But at my back from time to time I hear |
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The sound of horns and motors, which shall bring |
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Sweeney to Mrs. Porter in the spring. |
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O the moon shone bright on Mrs. Porter |
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And on her daughter |
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They wash their feet in soda water |
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<i>Et O ces voix d’enfants, chantant dans la coupole!</i> |
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Twit twit twit |
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Jug jug jug jug jug jug |
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So rudely forc’d. |
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Tereu |
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Unreal City |
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Under the brown fog of a winter noon |
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Mr. Eugenides, the Smyrna merchant |
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Unshaven, with a pocket full of currants |
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C.i.f. London: documents at sight, |
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Asked me in demotic French |
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To luncheon at the Cannon Street Hotel |
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Followed by a weekend at the Metropole. |
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At the violet hour, when the eyes and back |
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Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits |
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Like a taxi throbbing waiting, |
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I Tiresias, though blind, throbbing between two lives, |
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Old man with wrinkled female breasts, can see |
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At the violet hour, the evening hour that strives |
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Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea, |
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The typist home at teatime, clears her breakfast, lights |
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Her stove, and lays out food in tins. |
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Out of the window perilously spread |
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Her drying combinations touched by the sun’s last rays, |
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On the divan are piled (at night her bed) |
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Stockings, slippers, camisoles, and stays. |
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I Tiresias, old man with wrinkled dugs |
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Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest— |
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I too awaited the expected guest. |
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He, the young man carbuncular, arrives, |
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A small house agent’s clerk, with one bold stare, |
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One of the low on whom assurance sits |
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As a silk hat on a Bradford millionaire. |
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The time is now propitious, as he guesses, |
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The meal is ended, she is bored and tired, |
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Endeavours to engage her in caresses |
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Which still are unreproved, if undesired. |
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Flushed and decided, he assaults at once; |
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Exploring hands encounter no defence; |
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His vanity requires no response, |
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And makes a welcome of indifference. |
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(And I Tiresias have foresuffered all |
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Enacted on this same divan or bed; |
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I who have sat by Thebes below the wall |
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And walked among the lowest of the dead.) |
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Bestows one final patronising kiss, |
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And gropes his way, finding the stairs unlit . . . |
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She turns and looks a moment in the glass, |
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Hardly aware of her departed lover; |
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Her brain allows one half-formed thought to pass: |
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“Well now that’s done: and I’m glad it’s over.” |
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When lovely woman stoops to folly and |
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Paces about her room again, alone, |
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She smooths her hair with automatic hand, |
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And puts a record on the gramophone. |
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“This music crept by me upon the waters” |
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And along the Strand, up Queen Victoria Street. |
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O City city, I can sometimes hear |
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Beside a public bar in Lower Thames Street, |
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The pleasant whining of a mandoline |
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And a clatter and a chatter from within |
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Where fishmen lounge at noon: where the walls |
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Of Magnus Martyr hold |
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Inexplicable splendour of Ionian white and gold. |
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The river sweats |
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Oil and tar |
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The barges drift |
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With the turning tide |
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Red sails |
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Wide |
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To leeward, swing on the heavy spar. |
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The barges wash |
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Drifting logs |
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Down Greenwich reach |
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Past the Isle of Dogs. |
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Weialala leia |
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Wallala leialala |
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Elizabeth and Leicester |
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Beating oars |
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The stern was formed |
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A gilded shell |
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Red and gold |
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The brisk swell |
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Rippled both shores |
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Southwest wind |
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Carried down stream |
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The peal of bells |
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White towers |
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Weialala leia |
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Wallala leialala |
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“Trams and dusty trees. |
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Highbury bore me. Richmond and Kew |
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Undid me. By Richmond I raised my knees |
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Supine on the floor of a narrow canoe.” |
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“My feet are at Moorgate, and my heart |
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Under my feet. After the event |
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He wept. He promised ‘a new start’. |
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I made no comment. What should I resent?” |
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“On Margate Sands. |
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I can connect |
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Nothing with nothing. |
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The broken fingernails of dirty hands. |
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My people humble people who expect |
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Nothing.” |
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la la |
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To Carthage then I came |
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Burning burning burning burning |
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O Lord Thou pluckest me out |
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O Lord Thou pluckest |
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burning |
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</pre> |
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<h2>IV. Death by Water</h2> |
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<pre xml:space="preserve"> |
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Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead, |
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Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell |
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And the profit and loss. |
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A current under sea |
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Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell |
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He passed the stages of his age and youth |
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Entering the whirlpool. |
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Gentile or Jew |
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O you who turn the wheel and look to windward, |
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Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you. |
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</pre> |
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<h2>V. What the Thunder Said</h2> |
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<pre xml:space="preserve"> |
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After the torchlight red on sweaty faces |
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After the frosty silence in the gardens |
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After the agony in stony places |
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The shouting and the crying |
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Prison and palace and reverberation |
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Of thunder of spring over distant mountains |
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He who was living is now dead |
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We who were living are now dying |
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With a little patience |
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Here is no water but only rock |
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Rock and no water and the sandy road |
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The road winding above among the mountains |
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Which are mountains of rock without water |
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If there were water we should stop and drink |
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Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think |
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Sweat is dry and feet are in the sand |
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If there were only water amongst the rock |
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Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit |
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Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit |
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There is not even silence in the mountains |
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But dry sterile thunder without rain |
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There is not even solitude in the mountains |
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But red sullen faces sneer and snarl |
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From doors of mudcracked houses |
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If there were water |
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And no rock |
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If there were rock |
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And also water |
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And water |
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A spring |
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A pool among the rock |
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If there were the sound of water only |
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Not the cicada |
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And dry grass singing |
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But sound of water over a rock |
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Where the hermit-thrush sings in the pine trees |
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Drip drop drip drop drop drop drop |
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But there is no water |
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Who is the third who walks always beside you? |
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When I count, there are only you and I together |
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But when I look ahead up the white road |
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There is always another one walking beside you |
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Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded |
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I do not know whether a man or a woman |
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—But who is that on the other side of you? |
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What is that sound high in the air |
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Murmur of maternal lamentation |
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Who are those hooded hordes swarming |
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Over endless plains, stumbling in cracked earth |
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Ringed by the flat horizon only |
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What is the city over the mountains |
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Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air |
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Falling towers |
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Jerusalem Athens Alexandria |
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Vienna London |
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Unreal |
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A woman drew her long black hair out tight |
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And fiddled whisper music on those strings |
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And bats with baby faces in the violet light |
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Whistled, and beat their wings |
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And crawled head downward down a blackened wall |
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And upside down in air were towers |
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Tolling reminiscent bells, that kept the hours |
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And voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells. |
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In this decayed hole among the mountains |
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In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing |
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Over the tumbled graves, about the chapel |
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There is the empty chapel, only the wind’s home. |
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It has no windows, and the door swings, |
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Dry bones can harm no one. |
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Only a cock stood on the rooftree |
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Co co rico co co rico |
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In a flash of lightning. Then a damp gust |
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Bringing rain |
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Ganga was sunken, and the limp leaves |
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Waited for rain, while the black clouds |
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Gathered far distant, over Himavant. |
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The jungle crouched, humped in silence. |
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Then spoke the thunder |
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D<small>A</small> |
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<i>Datta:</i> what have we given? |
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My friend, blood shaking my heart |
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The awful daring of a moment’s surrender |
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Which an age of prudence can never retract |
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By this, and this only, we have existed |
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Which is not to be found in our obituaries |
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Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider |
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Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor |
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In our empty rooms |
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D<small>A</small> |
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<i>Dayadhvam:</i> I have heard the key |
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Turn in the door once and turn once only |
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We think of the key, each in his prison |
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Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison |
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Only at nightfall, aetherial rumours |
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Revive for a moment a broken Coriolanus |
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D<small>A</small> |
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<i>Damyata:</i> The boat responded |
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Gaily, to the hand expert with sail and oar |
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The sea was calm, your heart would have responded |
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Gaily, when invited, beating obedient |
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To controlling hands |
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I sat upon the shore |
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Fishing, with the arid plain behind me |
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Shall I at least set my lands in order? |
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London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down |
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<i>Poi s’ascose nel foco che gli affina |
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Quando fiam ceu chelidon</i>— O swallow swallow |
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<i>Le Prince d’Aquitaine à la tour abolie</i> |
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These fragments I have shored against my ruins |
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Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo’s mad againe. |
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Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata. |
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Shantih shantih shantih |
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</pre> |
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</div> |
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</article> |
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</body> |
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