9 Like railway-engines over desert plains: often in Kipling, as “skirting the edge of the desert on a narrow-gauge railway”, William the Conqueror (1898). For “the rhythms of the steppes · · · the grind of wheels · · · the roar of the underground railway”, see headnote to Sweeney Agonistes, 4. JAZZ. over desert plains: “Over endless plains, stumbling in cracked earth”, The Waste Land [V] 369.
10 The world of contact sprang up: Tennyson: “sprang up for ever at a touch · · · And world-wide fluctuation swayed | In vassal tides that followed thought”, In Memoriam CXII 10, 15–16 (TSE: “like a wave”, 1; “swaying”, 6). See note to The wind sprang up at four o’clock 1.
10–17 The world · · · the world · · · chrysalis: “The world is not simply there, for metaphysics to play upon; it is itself metaphysical, and meditating upon its own nature, spins itself out of its own belly”, The Validity of Artificial Distinctions (1914). pure · · · purity · · · chrysalis: Laforgue: “chrysalide · · · Purs” [chrysalis · · · innocent], Complainte des crépuscules célibataires [Complaint of bachelor twilights] 28–30.
11 The wind beyond the world: TSE’s books: Bodleian list (1934) includes William Morris’s The Wood Beyond the World (1894). TSE perhaps combined this title with Kipling’s phrase “The Wind that blows between the Worlds”, which comes three times in his poem Tomlinson (1892; in A Choice of Kipling’s Verse). (Tomlinson mentions “a caddis-case”; TSE: “chrysalis”, 17.) On combining Morris and Kipling, see note to the title The Hollow Men. the world had passed without a trace: Laforgue: “La terre crève aux cieux, sans laisser nulle trace” [The earth breaks open to the skies, without leaving any trace whatsoever], Soir de carnaval 8.
[Poems I 258 · Textual History II 576]
14, 16 ingenuous · · · set free: Symons 89, on Verlaine: “The verse murmurs, with such an ingenuous confidence, such intimate secrets. That ‘setting free’ of verse”.
17–18 cautious midnight of its chrysalis · · · meditates its wings: Bergson: “la conscience a dû s’assoupir, comme la chrysalide dans l’enveloppe où elle se prépare des ailes” [consciousness has had to fall asleep, like the chrysalis in the envelope in which it is preparing for itself wings], L’Evolution créatrice, ch. II. TSE: “Small lights of those who meditate at midnight”, Choruses from “The Rock” X 28. cautious midnight · · · meditates: Paradise Lost IX 55, 58–59: “meditated · · · and at midnight returned | From compassing the earth, cautious of day”. TSE: “nights · · · cautious”, WLComposite 292–94. midnight · · · meditates its wings: Marvell on the nightingale: “And studying all the summer night, | Her matchless songs does meditate”, The Mower to the Glowworms 3–4. Meredith: “She flew on it, then folded wings, | In meditation”, The Night-Walk 31–32. Coleridge: “Meditation’s heaven-ward wing”, Religious Musings 413. TSE: “Who clipped the lion’s wings · · · Thought Burbank, meditating on | Time’s ruins”, Burbank with a Baedeker: Bleistein with a Cigar 29–32.
19 Nourished · · · by manure: Browning: “nourished with manure”, The Inn Album 711. stimulated by manure: OED “stimulating”, 1842, Suburban Horticulture: “hence this manure is stimulating as well as enriching”.
20–22 I am sure it is like this | I am sure it is this | I am sure: for such iterations in TSE, see note to The Waste Land [III] 277–78, 290–91, 306. I am sure: “She is very sure of God”, Easter: Sensations of April, draft line after [I] 14.
The smoke that gathers blue and sinks
Published in March Hare.
Dated Feb 1911, ms1.
1–2 The smoke that gathers blue · · · cigars: Kipling’s story A Conference of the Powers opens: “The room was blue with the smoke of three pipes and a cigar”, Soldiers Three (1888). gathers blue: Joel 2: 6: “all faces shall gather blacknesse”. Tennyson: “that beech will gather brown, | This maple burn itself away”, In Memoriam CI 3–4; “The topmost elm-tree gathered green”, Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere 8.
3, 5 after-dinner drinks · · · insolence: Paradise Lost I 502: “flown with insolence and wine”. FitzGerald: “Oh, many a Cup of this forbidden Wine | Must drown the memory of that insolence!” Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám xxx.
3, 16 torpid after-dinner · · · of almost any age: Measure for Measure III i: “Thou hast nor youth, nor age | But as it were an after-dinner’s sleep | Dreaming on both” (which TSE modified as the epigraph to Gerontion; see also note to Mandarins 4 12). Laforgue’s prose vignette Après-dîner torride et stagnante has “la cigarette · · · des seins · · · ces musiciens · · · une vieille fille” (TSE: “cigars”, 2; “chiefly breast”, 17; his musicians, 14; “A lady of almost any age”, 16).
[Poems I 258 · Textual History II 576]
6 matter “going by itself”: Bertrand Russell: “Blind to good and evil, reckless of destruction, omnipotent matter rolls on its relentless way”, closing paragraph of The Free Man’s Worship (1903), later A Free Man’s Worship. TSE of the science writer Gerald Heard: “Readers will be reminded, by the turgid style rather than by the ill-constructed sentences, of that remarkable effusion of twenty years ago, Mr. Bertrand Russell’s essay, A Free Man’s Worship”, Revelation (1937). “One may become a Christian partly by pursuing scepticism to the utmost limit. I owe much, in this way, to Montaigne; something, in this way, to Bertrand Russell’s essay A Free Man’s Worship: the effect this essay had upon me was certainly the reverse of anything the author intended”, A Sermon preached in Magdalene College Chapel (1948) 5. T. H. Green: “If it could be admitted that matter and motion had an existence in themselves, or otherwise than as related to a consciousness, it would still not be by such matter and motion, but by the matter and motion which we know, that the functions of the soul, or anything else, can for us be explained”, Prolegomena to Ethics (1906) 13; scored by TSE. “going by itself”: Louis Büchner: “Dogmatic writers call it an unworthy view of God, to regard the world as clockwork going by itself”, Force and Matter: Empirico-Philosophical Studies, Intelligibly Rendered ed. J. Frederick Collingwood (1864) 38.
8 Stifled with glutinous liqueurs: Milton: “smeared with gums of glutinous heat”; Comus 917. Keats: “Or where God Bacchus drains his cups divine, | Stretched out, at ease, beneath a glutinous pine”, Lamia I 209–10.
9 sensation: see note to First Debate between the Body and Soul 6–7.
10 overoiled machinery: Van Wyck Brooks: “Efficiency is the well-oiled machinery”, The Wine of the Puritans (see The Engine I and notes). overoiled: including “oiled”, OED 3: “slang. Drunk”, from 1737. TSE to Virginia Woolf, [6 Jan] 1935, from one of the songs he liked to sing, about drinking Wurzburger: “It’s allright to oil up a sewing-machine”. See headnote to Among the various middle classes (in “Other Verses”). machinery: including OED 1: “Theatr. and literary” from 1687, with Pope, Dedication to The Rape of the Lock, 1714: “a term invented by the Critics, to signify that Part which the Deities, Angels, or Daemons, are made to act in a Poem” (TSE: “action”, 11).
16 A lady of almost any age: “Two ladies of uncertain age”, Mandarins 2 1 (see note).
18 “Throw your arms around me—Aint you glad you found me”: From The Cubanola Glide (1909) (David Chinitz, ANQ Summer 1998, correcting March Hare which cited an earlier song):
Throw your arms around me
Ain’t you glad you found me,
Tease, squeeze, lovin’ and wooin’,
Oh babe, what are you doin’,
Ride to glory by your baby’s side
When you do de Cubanola glide.
For this song, see WLComposite 10–11 and note; and for TSE and popular songs, see note to The Waste Land [II] 128–30.
20–21 a negro (teeth and smile) | Has a dance: Van Wyck Brooks: “she danced · · · a negro · · · Negroes grin”, The Wine of the Puritans 109.
[Poem I 258–59 · Textual History II 576]
22 That’s the stuff!: OED “stuff” 7f: “that’s the stuff (to give them or to give the troops)”, from 1923 only;
but in 1766 Colman and Garrick had “Money, money!—that’s the stuff that makes the great man”, The Clandestine Marriage I, and The Oxford Magazine Dec 1768 had “do not squander time—for that’s the stuff life is made of.”
He said: this universe is very clever
Published in March Hare.
Dated Mar 1911, ms1.
1–3 this universe is very clever · · · Each atom goes on working out its law: to Norbert Wiener, 6 Jan 1915: “ The only way in which we can talk about the ‘universe’ at all, it seems to me, is with reference to the universe of physical science” (“matter going by itself”, The smoke that gathers blue and sinks 6).
3 variant Each atom has its Place in Life: “The young person enters the society, waits to have a function assigned him. Then 1st disaster: they dont allot him any function, unless he is an absolute mollusc. If so, he gets a function, never needs to think again · · · Put a higher person into this milieu, they probably find a function for a time all goes well. The Rebel—the individual—is of a kind that insists on growing (whereas to have a function means that you are not to grow—which is much more comfortable)”, Principles of Growth: How to Avoid It (c. 1925). (The Family Reunion I i, first chorus: “like amateur actors who have not been assigned their parts?” See note to Convictions 1.) “Explained the use of a Place in Life”, Inside the gloom 22. “We returned to our places”, Journey of the Magi 40.
2, 4 paper · · · cut an unintentioned caper: Byron: “In taking up this paltry sheet of paper, | My bosom underwent a glorious glow, | And my internal Spirit cut a caper”, Don Juan X iii. Gilbert and Sullivan: “Paragraphs got into all the papers. | We only cut respectable capers”, Ruddigore (prod. 1887) act II. The first act of Gilbert’s The Grand Duke (prod. 1896) has “wall-papers · · · capers” (and, in the same song, “spiders · · · insiders”; TSE: “spider · · · inside her”, 6, 8). unintentioned: Elizabeth Barrett Browning: “As little children take up a high strain | With unintentioned voices”, Casa Guidi Windows II 10–11.
[Poems I 259 · Textual History II 576]
6 syphilitic spider: Donne: “The spider love”, Twicknam Garden 6; TSE quoted this in Rhyme and Reason: The Poetry of John Donne (1930). TSE: “‘Fuck Spiders’ was his chief remark”, The Columbiad st. 5. Emerson: “That devil-spider that devours her mate | Scarce freed from her embraces”, Philosophers 11–12. Remy de Gourmont on the epirus spider: “A peine la fécondation est-elle opérée que l’ogresse se retourne, bondissante, et dévore l’amant sur le lieu même de ses amours” [Scarcely has the fecundation been finished when the ogress turns, leaping, and devours the suitor on the very spot of his amours], Physique de l’amour ch. XIII. TSE asked Pound on 28 July 1922 about obtaining a copy of his translation, The Natural Philosophy of Love (Boni & Liveright, 1922). Translating his own Vers pour la Foulque (in Noctes Binanianæ), TSE rendered “la Tarentule · · · au vénin sûr” (25–26) as “spider with · · · deadly poison”, and “des chats avariés” (19) at first as “syphilitic cats”, emended in the printed text to the more accurate “damaged cats”. syphilitic: Byron has “pseudo-syphilis”, Don Juan I cxxxi, with “intentions” in the next stanza (TSE: “unintentioned”, 4).
6–7 in the middle like a syphilitic spider | The Absolute sits waiting: Bergson’s Absolute more than Bradley’s (for philosophers’ use of the term, see note to Conversation Galante 14). In Paris “during the first decade and more of this century”, TSE recalled, “over all swung the spider-like figure of Bergson”, A Commentary in Criterion Apr 1934. Aiken to TSE, [23 Nov 1913] on Bergson: “I always wax impatient with these withered little spiders who spin endless subtleties out of their own inner consciousness, merely using the external world as attacking-points, or points of suspension.” TSE: “The world is not simply there, for metaphysics to play upon; it is itself metaphysical, and meditating upon its own nature, spins itself out of its own belly”, The Validity of Artificial Distinctions (1914). To Edward J. H. Greene, 19 Apr 1940: “So far as I can see, Bergson had no influence on either my verse or my prose. It was only during the years 1910 and 11 that I was greatly impressed by his work.” in the middle, like a syphilitic spider · · · sits: Sir John Davies:
Much like a subtill Spider which doth sit,
In middle of her Web which spreadeth wide;
If ought do touch the utmost threed of it,
She feeles it instantly on every side
Nosce Teipsum 1061–64
TSE compares these lines favourably with a couplet from Pope (An Essay on Man I 217–18), and describes Davies’s poem as “a long discussion in verse of the nature of the soul and its relation to the body”, but adds of Davies’s theories that “we cannot take them very seriously”, Sir John Davies (1926).
6, 8 spider · · · inside her: “spider inside her inside”, Oxf Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes.
9–10 crucifixion · · · officechairs: Aiken on TSE at the end of 1911: “He had taken a room in Ash Street, installing in it a small stove—‘something to point the chairs at’—and a Gauguin Crucifixion, brought from Paris”, March & Tambimuttu eds. 21.
10 passed his life on officechairs: “measured out my life with coffee spoons”, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock 51.
12 abysmal: OED 1: “Of, pertaining to, or resembling an abyss”. 2: “In weakened sense: of an exceptionally poor standard or quality; extremely bad”, with first citation from James, The Golden Bowl bk. II xxviii.
15 an article: Byron: “’Tis strange the mind, that very fiery particle, | Should let itself be snuffed out by an Article”, Don Juan XI lx (a stanza about “the Gods” and a “Poor fellow”). TSE: “Is personality equivalent to this totality of experience, or is it only a (very fiery) particle?”, “Religion and Science: A Philosophical Essay” by John Theodore Merz (1916), review.
[Poem I 259–60 · Textual History II 576–77]
Interlude in London
Published in March Hare.
Dated Apr 1911 in Notebook.
This April poem, with its “hibernate · · · live · · · sudden rains · · · garden plots · · · spring”, has affinities with the opening and closing of The Waste Land I. “F. M.”: “pots · · · the essential spring—spring in winter, spring in London · · · flower women at street crossings · · · one’s face in the glass · · · One’s soul stirs stiffly out of the dead endurance of the winter—but toward what spring?” Letters of the Moment I (1924).
Title Interlude: the predominant sense is “usually of a light or humorous character”, but OED 2b is more solemn: “Music. An instrumental piece played between the verses of a psalm or hymn, or in the intervals of a church-service, etc.” Also OED 3: “An interval in the course of some action or event; an intervening time or space of a different character or sort.” See Interlude: in a Bar.
1 We hibernate among the bricks: to Eleanor Hinkley, 26 Apr 1911: “I just came back from London last night · · · Paris has burst out, during my absence, into full spring; and it is such a revelation that I feel that I ought to make it known. At London, one pretended that it was spring, and tried to coax the spring, and talk of the beautiful weather; but one continued to hibernate amongst the bricks. And one looked through the windows, and the waiter brought in eggs and coffee, and the Graphic (which I conscientiously tried to read, to please them)”. Laforgue: “Ah! quel juillet nous avons hiverné” [Ah, what a July we have hibernated], epigraph to the volume L’Imitation de Notre-Dame la Lune [The Imitation of Our Lady the Moon]. Apollinaire: “j’ai hiverné”, La Chanson du Mal-Aimé [The Song of the Ill-Loved] 46 (in Mercure de France 1 May 1909), with “briques”, 11 (at the line-ending) and “L’année dernière”, 59 (TSE: “last year’s”, 6). See notes to Goldfish IV 9 and Fourth Caprice in Montparnasse 1, 11. hibernate: OED: “Of persons: To winter in a milder locality”, from 1865. among the bricks: TSE’s father was president, then chairman of the Hydraulic-Press Brick Company in St. Louis (see note to Second Caprice in North Cambridge 1, 7). “among the bric
à-brac”, Portrait of a Lady III 9.
1, 5–6 hibernate among the bricks · · · sudden rains | Softening last year’s garden plots: Hawthorne: “she had reminded me of plants that one sometimes observes doing their best to vegetate among the bricks of an enclosed court, where there is scanty soil, and never any sunshine”, The Blithedale Romance ch. VII. TSE to Conrad Aiken, 21 Aug 1916: “We are vegetating”. See note to Morning at the Window 3–4.
1–9 bricks · · · six · · · sudden rains · · · mouldy flowerpots: Tennyson: “the mouldering bricks · · · six · · · showers · · · a flower among the flowers”, Locksley Hall Sixty Years After 257–60.
[Poem I 260 · Textual History II 577]
2–8 And live across the window panes · · · the wind · · · the spring goes: W. G. Tinckom-Fernandez: “Spring shyly taps the window-pane, | And all the winds of heaven sigh | With hope for June-sun-scented days—”, The Street Organ 1–3 (see notes to First Caprice in North Cambridge 1 and Do I know how I feel? Do I know what I think? 21–22). across the window panes: Oh little voices of the throats of men 37. “upon the window-panes · · · on the window-panes · · · across the window-panes”, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock 15–16, 25. “Drift across the window-panes”, Mr. Eliot’s Sunday Morning Service 3.
The Poems of T. S. Eliot Volume I Page 170
