The Poems of T. S. Eliot Volume I
Page 18
65
The doors, though barred and bolted most securely,
Gave way—my statement nobody can doubt,
Who knows the well known fact, as you do surely—
That ghosts are fellows whom you can’t keep out;
It is a thing to be lamented sorely
70
Such slippery folk should be allowed about,
For often they drop in at awkward moments,
As everybody’ll know who reads this romance.
The Abbot sat as pasted to his chair,
His eye became the size of any dollar,
75
The ghost then took him roughly by the hair
And bade him come with him, in accents hollow.
The friars could do nought but gape and stare,
The spirit pulled him rudely by the collar,
And before any one could say ‘O jiminy!’
80
The pair had vanisht swiftly up the chimney.
Naturally every one searcht everywhere,
But not a shred of Bishop could be found,
The monks, when anyone questioned, would declare
St. Peter’d snatcht to heaven their lord renowned,
85
Though the wicked said (such rascals are not rare)
That the Abbot’s course lay nearer underground;
But the church straightway put to his name the handle
Of Saint, thereby rebuking all such scandal.
[Commentary I 1071 · Textual History II 563]
But after this the monks grew most devout,
90
And lived on milk and breakfast food entirely;
Each morn from four to five one took a knout
And flogged his mates ’till they grew good and friarly.
Spirits from that time forth they did without,
And lived the admiration of the shire. We
95
Got the veracious record of these doings
From an old manuscript found in the ruins.
To the Class of 1905
I
Standing upon the shore of all we know
We linger for a moment doubtfully,
Then with a song upon our lips, sail we
Across the harbor bar—no chart to show,
5
No light to warn of rocks which lie below,
But let us yet put forth courageously.
II
As colonists embarking from the strand
To seek their fortunes on some foreign shore
Well know they lose what time shall not restore,
10
And when they leave they fully understand
That though again they see their fatherland
They there shall be as citizens no more.
[Commentary I 1071 · Textual History II 563]
III
We go; as lightning-winged clouds that fly
After a summer tempest, when some haste
15
North, South, and Eastward o’er the water’s waste,
Some to the western limits of the sky
Which the sun stains with many a splendid dye,
Until their passing may no more be traced.
IV
Although the path be tortuous and slow,
20
Although it bristle with a thousand fears,
To hopeful eye of youth it still appears
A lane by which the rose and hawthorn grow.
We hope it may be; would that we might know!
Would we might look into the future years.
V
25
Great duties call—the twentieth century
More grandly dowered than those which came before,
Summons—who knows what time may hold in store,
Or what great deeds the distant years may see,
What conquest over pain and misery,
30
What heroes greater than were e’er of yore!
VI
But if this century is to be more great
Than those before, her sons must make her so,
And we are of her sons, and we must go
With eager hearts to help mold well her fate,
35
And see that she shall gain such proud estate
As shall on future centuries bestow
[Commentary I 1071 · Textual History II 563–64]
VII
A legacy of benefits—may we
In future years be found with those who try
To labor for the good until they die,
40
And ask no other guerdon than to know
That they have helpt the cause to victory,
That with their aid the flag is raised on high.
VIII
Sometime in distant years when we are grown
Gray-haired and old, whatever be our lot,
45
We shall desire to see again the spot
Which, whatsoever we have been or done
Or to what distant lands we may have gone,
Through all the years will ne’er have been forgot.
IX
For in the sanctuaries of the soul
50
Incense of altar-smoke shall rise to thee
From spotless fanes of lucid purity,
O school of ours! The passing years that roll
Between, as we press onward to the goal,
Shall not have power to quench the memory.
X
55
We shall return; and it will be to find
A different school from that which now we know;
But only in appearance t’will be so.
That which has made it great, not left behind,
The same school in the future shall we find
60
As this from which as pupils now we go.
[Commentary I 1071–72 · Textual History II 564]
XI
We go; like flitting faces in a dream;
Out of thy care and tutelage we pass
Into the unknown world—class after class,
O queen of schools—a momentary gleam,
65
A bubble on the surface of the stream,
A drop of dew upon the morning grass;
XII
Thou dost not die—for each succeeding year
Thy honor and thy fame shall but increase
Forever, and may stronger words than these
70
Proclaim thy glory so that all may hear;
May worthier sons be thine, from far and near
To spread thy name o’er distant lands and seas!
XIII
As thou to thy departing sons hast been
To those that follow may’st thou be no less;
75
A guide to warn them, and a friend to bless
Before they leave thy care for lands unseen;
And let thy motto be, proud and serene,
Still as the years pass by, the word ‘Progress!’
XIV
So we are done; we may no more delay;
80
Thus is the end of every tale: ‘Farewell’,
A word that echoes like a funeral bell
And one that we are ever loth to say.
But ’tis a call we cannot disobey,
Exeunt omnes, with a last ‘farewell’.
[Commentary I 1072 · Textual History II 564]
Song
When we came home across the hill
No leaves were fallen from the trees;
The gentle fingers of the breeze
Had torn no quivering cobweb down.
5
The hedgerow bloomed with flowers still,
No withered petals lay beneath;
But the wild roses in your wreath
Were faded, and the leaves were brown.
Before Morning
While all the East was weaving red with gray,
&nbs
p; The flowers at the window turned toward dawn,
Petal on petal, waiting for the day,
Fresh flowers, withered flowers, flowers of dawn.
5
This morning’s flowers and flowers of yesterday
Their fragrance drifts across the room at dawn,
Fragrance of bloom and fragrance of decay,
Fresh flowers, withered flowers, flowers of dawn.
Circe’s Palace
Around her fountain which flows
With the voice of men in pain,
Are flowers that no man knows.
Their petals are fanged and red
5
With hideous streak and stain;
They sprang from the limbs of the dead.—
We shall not come here again.
Panthers rise from their lairs
In the forest which thickens below,
10
Along the garden stairs
The sluggish python lies;
The peacocks walk, stately and slow,
And they look at us with the eyes
Of men whom we knew long ago.
[Commentary I 1072–73 · Textual History II 564]
On a Portrait
Among a crowd of tenuous dreams, unknown
To us of restless brain and weary feet,
Forever hurrying, up and down the street,
She stands at evening in the room alone.
5
Not like a tranquil goddess carved of stone
But evanescent, as if one should meet
A pensive lamia in some wood-retreat,
An immaterial fancy of one’s own.
No meditations glad or ominous
10
Disturb her lips, or move the slender hands;
Her dark eyes keep their secrets hid from us,
Beyond the circle of our thought she stands.
The parrot on his bar, a silent spy,
Regards her with a patient curious eye.
[Commentary I 1073–74 · Textual History II 564–65]
Song
The moonflower opens to the moth,
The mist crawls in from sea;
A great white bird, a snowy owl,
Slips from the alder tree.
5
Whiter the flowers, Love, you hold,
Than the white mist on the sea;
Have you no brighter tropic flowers
With scarlet lips, for me?
Ballade of the Fox Dinner
May 15, 1909
Muse of the rye and ginger ale,
Muse of the Cocktail and the Bar,
Open a bottle ere you hail
The members met from near and far.
5
A host of loyal graduates
Oblivious of bonds and stocks,
Your genial influence awaits
Here at a dinner of the Fox.
When Cordon Rouge like water flows
10
And cheers for Yale affright the air
And Leland through a window goes
While summersaulting on his chair,
We then consign us to your care;
Save us from self inflicted knocks!
15
And see us safely down the stair
After a dinner at the Fox.
<
[Commentary I 1074 · Textual History II 565–66]
Our faithful hearts will be the same
When twenty years have passed between us.
When Nick still runs his gambling game,
20
McNeil his partnership with Venus,
When Short is advertising booze
And Talbot selling vests and socks
I’m sure then will the loyal muse
Attend the dinners of the Fox.
25
So temporize with demon Rum!
To all who’re here a toast bestow,
And all of those who could not come
And those from college soon to go
And those who now here first we see;
30
To everyone the muse unlocks
The gates of hospitality
Here at a dinner of the Fox.
Envoi.
O Muse, I pray, do something for us
Unless the scene your virtue shocks
35
While Bowen leads the cocktail chorus
Here at a dinner of the Fox.
Nocturne
Romeo, grand sérieux, to importune
Guitar and hat in hand, beside the gate
With Juliet, in the usual debate
Of love, beneath a bored but courteous moon;
5
The conversation failing, strikes some tune
Banal, and out of pity for their fate
Behind the wall I have some servant wait,
Stab, and the lady sinks into a swoon.
>
[Commentary I 1074–75 · Textual History II 566]
Blood looks effective on the moonlit ground—
10
The hero smiles; in my best mode oblique
Rolls toward the moon a frenzied eye profound,
(No need of ‘Love forever?’—‘Love next week?’)
While female readers all in tears are drowned:—
‘The perfect climax all true lovers seek!’
First Caprice in North Cambridge
A street-piano, garrulous and frail;
The yellow evening flung against the panes
Of dirty windows: and the distant strains
Of children’s voices, ended in a wail.
5
Bottles and broken glass,
Trampled mud and grass;
A heap of broken barrows;
And a crowd of tattered sparrows
Delve in the gutter with sordid patience.
10
Oh, these minor considerations! … . .
Second Caprice in North Cambridge
This charm of vacant lots!
The helpless fields that lie
Sinister, sterile and blind—
Entreat the eye and rack the mind,
5
Demand your pity.
With ashes and tins in piles,
Shattered bricks and tiles
And the débris of a city.
<
[Commentary I 1075–78 · Textual History II 566–67]
Far from our definitions
10
And our aesthetic laws
Let us pause
With these fields that hold and rack the brain
(What: again?)
With an unexpected charm
15
And an unexplained repose
On an evening in December
Under a sunset yellow and rose.
Opera
Tristan and Isolde
And the fatalistic horns
The passionate violins
And ominous clarinet;
5
And love torturing itself
To emotion for all there is in it,
Writhing in and out
Contorted in paroxysms,
Flinging itself at the last
10
Limits of self-expression.
We have the tragic? oh no!
Life departs with a feeble smile
Into the indifferent.
These emotional experiences
15
Do not hold good at all,
And I feel like the ghost of youth
At the undertakers’ ball.
[Commentary I 1078–80 · Textual History II 567]
Humouresque
(AFTER J. LAFORGUE)
One of my marionettes is dead,
Though not yet tired of the game—
But weak in body as in head,
(A jumping-jack has such a frame).
5
But this deceasèd marionette
I rather liked: a common face,
(The
kind of face that we forget)
Pinched in a comic, dull grimace;
Half bullying, half imploring air,
10
Mouth twisted to the latest tune;
His who-the-devil-are-you stare;
Translated, maybe, to the moon.
With Limbo’s other useless things
Haranguing spectres, set him there;
15
‘The snappiest fashion since last spring’s,
‘The newest style, on Earth, I swear.
‘Why don’t you people get some class?
(Feebly contemptuous of nose),
‘Your damned thin moonlight, worse than gas—
20
‘Now in New York—’ and so it goes.
Logic a marionette’s, all wrong
Of premises; yet in some star
A hero!—Where would he belong?
But, even at that, what mask bizarre!
[Commentary I 1080–81 · Textual History II 567–68]
Convictions (Curtain Raiser)
Among my marionettes I find
The enthusiasm is intense!
They see the outlines of their stage
Conceived upon a scale immense
5
And even in this later age
Await an audience open-mouthed
At climax and suspense.
Two, in a garden scene
Go picking tissue paper roses;
10
Hero and heroine, alone,
The monotone
Of promises and compliments