The Poems of T. S. Eliot Volume I
Page 88
[III] 264 TSE’s Notes The Proposed Demolition: the London County Council report was written in reaction to the “drastic proposal” of a commission set up by the Bishop of London, which had reported in Apr 1920. Bonamy Dobrée recalled: “One Saturday afternoon my wife and I accompanied Eliot at the head of a protest procession through the City, at intervals chanting Onward, Christian Soldiers and other hymns. The churches were saved”, Tate ed. 70. TSE used the anonymous authority of the front page of the TLS, 23 Sept 1926: “there are those for whom the City churches are as precious as any of the four hundred odd churches in Rome which are in no danger of demolition”, Lancelot Andrewes (1926). The House of Commons finally voted against the demolitions on 25 Nov that year. “If Christianity disappeared, it would be more sensible to destroy all the churches in England than to preserve them as monuments”, A Commentary in Criterion Oct 1934 (see “If I were a Dean” in headnote to Choruses from “The Rock”; the Foreword to the programme for The Rock spoke of building parish churches “probably with financial help from demolished churches from central London”). P. S. King & Son, Ltd: not publisher but printer and distribution agent for the LCC report.
[III] 265 Inexplicable splendour: John Betjeman noted that TSE “must have entered St Magnus not earlier than 1921, the year when the present rector, Fr. Fynes Clinton, was appointed. Before that St Magnus was low church, box-pewed, dead and dusty. The Ionian white and gold must refer to the redecoration under Fr. Fynes Clinton by Martin Travers”, Braybrooke ed. 194. The redecoration did not occur until 1924–25, but H. J. Fynes-Clinton was so pronouncedly high church as to cause controversy soon after his induction in May 1921. A Consistory Court in 1922 granted a faculty for the removal of “certain illegal ornaments”. It heard of services in Latin, a requiem for the Pope and “a gilded throne of wood placed on the head of the tabernacle” (The Times 31 July 1922). A further dispute followed (The Times 4 Dec 1922). St. Magnus had previously seen doctrinal struggles when Coverdale was rector, 1564–66, and in the mid-17th century. (For Lancelot Andrewes as “the ‘ritualist’ of his day” and a description of “his altar with its lights and cushions, the canister for the wafers and the basin for the oblations”, see introduction to F. E. Brightman’s ed. of Preces Privatæ xxxiv.) After entering the Church of England in 1927, TSE attended St. Stephen’s, Kensington, which was so high church during the 1930s as to attract demonstrations (Smart 104). Inexplicable: OED 1: “very intricate or complex. Obs.”, citing Emerson: “There is never a beginning, there is never an end, to the inexplicable continuity of this web of God.” 3: “That cannot be explained; inscrutable, unintelligible; (in recent use) that cannot be accounted for, unaccountable”, with 1699: “If God has declared this inexplicable thing concerning himself to us, we are bound to believe it.” Accented on the second syllable (not the third) in TSE’s recordings. Ionian: variant Corinthian. The LCC report drew attention both to “slender Ionic columns” dividing the nave from the side aisles, and to the altar-piece “treated with the Corinthian order · · · the whole being richly carved.” white and gold: liturgical colours of Easter.
[Poem I 64, 338 · Textual History II 396]
[III] 265–68 white and gold · · · barges drift: Kipling: “Business took him over London Bridge · · · As we passed over the Thames we paused to look at a steamer unloading great slabs of white and brown marble. A barge drifted under the steamer’s stern”, The Finest Story in the World (Crawford 133).
[III] 266–67 The river sweats | Oil and tar: “When the surface of the blackened river | Is a face that sweats with tears”, Song (“The golden foot I may not kiss or clutch”) 9–10 (see headnote to that poem and headnote to The Waste Land, 1. COMPOSITION). “Like perfumed oil upon the waters”, The Burnt Dancer 18. “a face that sweats with tears”, The wind sprang up at four o’clock 8. For Coleridge, “The water, like a witch’s oils”, see note to Burbank with a Baedeker: Bleistein with a Cigar 11–12.
[III] 266–72 river · · · tide · · · Wide · · · swing: John Gould Fletcher: “The gates swing wide and open on a dim and lonely water, | In between them, swift and silent, the tide runs out to sea”, The Red Gates in New Paths, ed. C. W. Beaumont and M. T. H. Sadler (1918).
[III] 266–91 The river sweats · · · Wallala leialala: TSE’s Notes call this “The Song of the (three) Thames-daughters”, after “the Rhine-daughters” in Wagner’s Götterdämmerung III i (see note to [II] 277–78, 290–91). The Thames-daughters later speak in turn (292–306).
[III] 268–75 The barges drift · · · tide | Red sails · · · leeward · · · Drifting logs · · · reach: Amy Lowell, on Venice: “Leaves fall, | Brown leaves, | Yellow leaves streaked with brown · · · Loosen on their branches | And drift slowly downwards”, 1777, II: The City of Falling Leaves. TSE wrote that Lowell’s poem had “given me great pleasure by its precision of image and its skill in workmanship”, Reflections on Contemporary Poetry III (1917). Conrad: “the tanned sails of the barges drifting up with the tide seemed to stand still in red clusters of canvas”, Heart of Darkness pt. 1 (Drew 118–19). Conrad: “a solitary log came out from the bend above and went on drifting down the straight reach”, An Outcast of the Islands V i.
[III] 270 Red sails: Hayward: “The familiar and imposing red sails of the Thames barges or wherries.”
[III] 272 leeward: pronounced loo’rd in TSE’s recordings (see rhyme with “blew hard · · · manured · · · steward”, The Columbiad st. 41). OED (which gives priority to the pronunciation lee-w’d): “away from the wind”. See note to [IV] 320 “windward”.
[III] 272–73 spar. | The barges wash: Pound: “I cling to the spar, | Washed”, Et Faim Sallir le Loup des Boys 1–2 in Blast 2 (July 1915).
436–37 The barges wash, | Like drifting logs: to Pound [26? Jan 1922]:
[Poem I 64–65, 338 · Textual History II 396]
Would D’s difficulty be solved by inverting to
Drifting logs
The barges wash … ???
The two lines had appeared (in the opposite order) in ms2 (WLFacs 48/49), but any typescript by TSE that included them is now lost, and Dorothy Pound’s difficulty is unknown. Pound, [28? Jan]: “D. was fussing about some natural phenomenon, but I thought I had crossed out her queery. The wake of the barges washes c., and the barges may perfectly well be said to wash. I shd. leave it as it is, and NOT invert.” The original order was restored for publication: “The barges wash | Drifting logs” (the two lines appearing as one in T/W). For the correspondence, see headnote, 1. COMPOSITION. Writing to his Swedish translator Erik Mesterton, 20 Jan 1932, TSE appeared to discount the transitive sense (OED 15: “to carry away or transport”): “By ‘Wash’ I mean both to be carried along by the stream and swayed from side to side by the varying gusts of wind in land-locked waters.”
[III] 275–76 Greenwich reach | Past the Isle of Dogs: Hayward: “The Thames at Greenwich Reach, below the Pool of London, makes a deep bend round the Isle of Dogs (Parish of Poplar, a poor dockland district) on its northern bank and washes to the south of the magnificent range of buildings known as Greenwich Hospital, one of the outstanding masterpieces of Sir Christopher Wren. The contrast between the two banks is doubtless intentional. G reenwich was formerly a Royal Palace. Elizabeth entertained Lord Leicester there.” Greenwich: pronounced Grennitch.
[III] 276, 300 Isle of Dogs · · · Margate Sands: to his Swedish translator Erik Mesterton, 20 Jan 1932: “It is better to leave these place names in English.”
[III] 277–78, 290–91] Wagner’s song of the Rhine-daughters, Götterdämmerung III i:
Frau Sonne Dame Sun
sendet lichte Strahlen; sends down her rays of light;
Nacht liegt in der Tiefe: night lies in the depths:
einst war sie hell, once they were bright,
da heil und hehr when safe and glorious
des Vaters Gold noch in ihr glänzte. our father’s gold gleamed there
Rheingold! Rhinegold!
Klares Gold!
Lustrous gold!
Wie hell du einstens strahltest, How brightly you once shone,
hehrer Stern der Tiefe! majestic star of the deep!
(Sie schliessen wieder den Schwimmreigen) (They resume their swimming dance)
Weialala leia, Weialala leia,
wallala leialala. wallala leialala.
(Ferner Hornruf.—Sie lauschen.— Sie schlagen jauchzend das Wasser) (A horncall in the distance—they listen.—They splash joyful in the water)
Frau Sonne, Dame Sun,
sende uns den Helden, send us the hero
der das Gold uns wiedergäbe! who will give us back the gold!
Liess’ er es uns, If he let us have it,
dein lichtes Auge we would no longer envy
neideten dann wir nicht länger. your bright eyes.
Rheingold! Rhinegold!
Klares Gold! Lustrous gold!
Wie froh du dann strahltest, How happily you shone then,
freier Stern der Tiefe! free star of the deep!
[Poem I 65, 338–39 · Textual History II 396–97]
Laforgue, alluding to Die Walküre, the second part of The Ring following Das Rheingold: “en poussant des clameurs de Walkyrie! | Hoyotoho! | Heiaha! | Hahei! Heiaho! Hoyohei!” [She shouts out the cry of the Valkyries. “Hoyotoho! | Heiaha! | Hahei! Heiaho! Hoyohei!”] Pan et la Syrinx [Pan and the Syrinx]. Four paragraphs later: “elle clame un dernier Hoyotoho! et alors se jette dans le légerrideau des roseaux et se laisse aller dans les eaux! · · · Il voit la belle enfant sauvé qu’ont reçue · · · les naïades silencieuses” [She cries out “Hoyotoho!” once more, then she throws herself through the light curtain of reeds, and she falls into the water · · · he looks down into the water and he sees that Syrinx has been rescued by the silent naiads]. The naiad Syrinx is another river-daughter. TSE to D. G. Bridson, 11 Jan 1938, of a semi-dramatised broadcast of The Waste Land: “while I did not otherwise object to the bit about the barges being sung, I thought that it led to an unfortunate reversal; I mean it is a pity that the refrain should have been spoken (which makes it sound foolish) instead of being sung to the excellent bit of music which Wagner provided for the purpose. But what shocked me most of all was that the words of the Thames Daughters which follow were also sung, to the accompaniment of an irrelevant and trivial strumming, instead of being spoken as they should be”, see headnote, 8. ANTHOLOGIES, TRANSLATIONS, ADAPTATIONS.
Adam Trexler: “Great symbolic importance was attached to Britain’s suspension of the gold standard in 1919: sterling and all the international currencies dependent on it were now unsecured from value. This loss of symbolic value is dramatised in The Waste Land by the woes of the Thames daughters and the Rhine daughters, who are charged with guarding the gold that secures the nations of Britain and Germany”, Harding ed. 278. TSE wrote that “in the present condition” of Germany, it was “improbable that any currency medium other than a convertible gold note would win back public trust”, Foreign Exchanges in Lloyds Bank Monthly Oct 1923. On a German study: “I have found this book very interesting · · · The book deals very thoroughly with finance in Germany before, and chiefly after the war, up to this year · · · I feel a good deal of sympathy with his criticism of finance and financiers · · · shewing exactly how elections in all parliamentary countries are paid for”, “Das Geld in der Politik” [Gold in Politics] by Richard Lewinsohn, reader’s report (1931).
After victory over Germany in 1918, the French avenged the punitive treaty forced upon them in 1871 by the Germans at Versailles (see notes to [I] 8–17 and to Gerontion 62, 64–65). The 1919 settlement, likewise signed in the Hall of Mirrors, imposed still more punitive terms. John Maynard Keynes wrote that “the Carthaginian peace is not practically right or possible” (see note to [III] 306–307, “Carthage”), and warned that it was a threat to German stability:
There remain the clauses relating to the river system of Germany. These are largely unnecessary · · · Yet they constitute an unprecedented interference with a country’s domestic arrangements, and are capable of being so operated as to take from Germany all effective control over her own transport system · · · Most of the principal rivers of Germany have their source or their outlet in non-German territory. The Rhine, rising in Switzerland, is now a frontier river for a part of its course, and finds the sea in Holland · · · The Treaty, however, has made the international character of these rivers a pretext for taking the river system of Germany out of German control · · · It is almost as though the Powers of Continental Europe were to be placed in a majority on the Thames Conservancy or the Port of London.
The Economic Consequences of the Peace (1919) ch. III, IV
[Poem I 65, 338–39 · Textual History II 396–97]
(For “economic consequences of the war” quoted on front flap of the Boni & Liveright edition of The Waste Land, see headnote, 5. APROPOS OF PUBLICATION.)Keynes again: “the gold · · · seemed to afford one of the few obvious and certain sources for Reparation · · · no sum worth speaking of can be expected in the form of gold or silver”, ch. V, “Reparation” (subheading, “Gold”). TSE: “the River flows, with foreign flotations”, Choruses from “The Rock” I 20. To his mother, 6 Jan 1920: “I wonder if America realises how terrible the condition of central Europe is. I can never forget quite put Vienna out of my mind. And I have seen people who have been in Germany and they are most pessimistic about the future, not only of Germany, but of the world. They say that there is no hope unless the treaty is revised. I believe by the way that J. M. Keynes: The Economic Consequences of the Peace is an important book, if you can get hold of it.” This, he wrote in an obituary, was “the only one of his books which I have ever read: I was at that time occupied, in a humble capacity, with the application of some of the minor financial clauses of the treaty”, John Maynard Keynes (1946). In the Harvard College Class of 1910: Secretary’s Fourth Report (1921), he had given his profession as “Banker, Critic, Poet”, and added: “Specializing in the Economic Clauses of the Peace Treaty”. To Quinn, 9 May 1921: “Even what I do—I am dealing with all the debts and claims of the bank under the various Peace Treaties—sometimes takes a good deal of thought and strength.” For “the post-War world” and “the post-Peace world”, see Coriolan headnote, 1. COMPOSITION. TSE: “If he walked in the streets, in the streets of Carthage | He seemed to tread on faces, convulsive thighs and knees”, The Death of Saint Narcissus 18–19 variant.
[III] 277–78, 290–91, 306 Weialala leia | Wallala leialala · · · Weialala leia | Wallala leialala · · · la la: other forms of iteration in TSE include:
The Waste Land [III] 309–10:
Burning burning burning burning
O Lord Thou pluckest me out
O Lord Thou pluckest
burning
The Hollow Men V 25–27:
For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the
Ash-Wednesday I 1–3:
Because I do not hope to turn again
Because I do not hope
Because I do not hope to turn
Ash-Wednesday I 40–41
Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death
Pray for us now and at the hour of our death
Bacchus and Ariadne 20–22:
I am sure it is like this
I am sure it is this
I am sure
The only poem to be published by “F. M.” appeared in Criterion Apr 1925 (see McCue 2016); Necesse est Perstare? [Is it necessary to endure?] ends:
[Poem I 65, 338–39 · Textual History II 396–98]
Is it necessary—
Is this necessary—
Tell me, is it necessary that we go through this?
TSE to Jane Heap, 6 Oct 1924: “I have been working in a method of repetition and variation lately.”
[III] 279 Elizabeth and Leicester: the letter of 30 June 1561 that is quoted by J. A. Froude and taken up in TSE’s Notes describes a party on the Thames stage
d by Lord Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, for the Queen, who was then living at Greenwich. The Spanish Bishop Alvarez de Quadra wrote: “In the afternoon we were in a barge, watching the games on the river. She was alone with the Lord Robert and myself on the poop, when they began to talk nonsense, and went so far that Lord Robert said at last, as I was on the spot there was no reason why they should not be married if the queen pleased · · · I said gravely to them both, that if they would be guided by me they would shake off the tyranny of those men who were oppressing the realm” and “restore religion and good order” (Everyman ed. I 244). TSE: “For the general history of the Tudor reigns, including that of Elizabeth, the various volumes of Froude are of permanent value, and are many of them obtainable in the ‘Everyman’ edition”, Syllabus: Elizabethan Literature (1918). The Reign of Elizabeth had been extracted in 1911 as five Everyman volumes, from Froude’s 12-vol. History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Defeat of the Spanish Armada (1856–70). TSE to Hayward, 18 July 1939, describing a performance he had seen: “The Kenilworth Pageant was remarkable. Chiefly written by Miss Thomas, English Mistress at Leamington High School, but bits were contributed by C. Marlowe and W. Shakespeare. The latter showed his versatility by taking a minor part (at the age of 11) in the festivities given by Leicester to Elizabeth, and was wildly cheered as he toddled across the green.” TSE may have known of a previous attempt to recreate the kind of masque presented before Elizabeth I at Kenilworth Castle, The Masque at Kenilworth, with music by Arthur Sullivan and words by Henry Chorley (1864), which drew on descriptions in Walter Scott’s Kenilworth.