T.S. Eliot – Selected Poems 1954

“There will be time, there will be time,

To prepare a face to meet the faces you meet;

There will be time to murder and create.” (Eliot ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’, 1954, p.4).

“I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves

Combing the white hair of the waves blown back

When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea

By sea girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown

Till human voices wake us, and we drown.” (Eliot ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’, 1954, p.7).

“Among the smoke and fog of a December afternoon

You have the scene arrange itself – as it will seem to do –

With ‘I have saved this afternoon for you’;” (Eliot ‘Portrait of a lady’, 1954, p.8).

“And when all the world came back

And the light crept up between the shutters,

And you heard the sparrow in the gutters,

You had a vision of the street

As the street hardly understands.” (Eliot ‘Preludes, 1954, p.14).

“Twleve o’clock.

Along the reaches of the street

Held in lunar synthesis,

Whispering lunar incantations

Dissolve the floors of memory

And all its clear relations,

Its divisions and precisions.” (Eliot ‘Rhapsody on a windy night’, 1954, p.16).

“I saw the ‘potamus take wing

Ascending from the damp savannas,

And quiring angels round him sing

The praise of God, in loud hosannas.” (Eliot ‘Gerontion’, 1954, p.31).

“April is the cruellest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain.” (Eliot ‘The waste land’, 1954, p.41).

“Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,

Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell

And the profit and loss.

                                       A current under sea

Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell

He passed the stages of his age and youth

Entering the whirlpool.

                                     Gentile or Jew

O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,

Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.” (Eliot ‘The waste land’, 1954, p.53).

“After the torchlight red on sweaty faces

After the frosty silence in the gardens

After the agony in stony places

The shouting and the crying

Prison and palaces and reverberation

Of thunder of spring over distant mountains

He who was living is now dead

We who were living are now dying

With a little patience.” (Eliot ‘The waste land’, 1954, p.54).

“”This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but with a whimper.” (Eliot ‘The hollow men’, 1954, p.70).

“Because these wings are no longer wings to fly

But merely vans to beat the air

The air which is now thoroughly small and dry

Smaller and dryer than the will.” (Eliot ‘Ash Wednesday’, 1954, p.74).

“At the first turning of the second stair

I turned and saw below

The same shape twisted on the banister

Under the vapour in the fetid air

Struggling with the devil of the stairs who wears

The deceitful face of hope and of despair.” (Eliot ‘Ash Wednesday’, 1954, p.77).

“And the light shone in darkness and

Against the Word the unstilled world still whirled

About the centre of the silent Word.” (Eliot ‘Ash Wednesday’, 1954, p.80).

“This: were we led all the way for

Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,

We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,

But had thought they were different; this Birth was

Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.

We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,

But no longer at ease here, on the old dispensation,

With an alien people clutching their gods.

I should be glad of another death.” (Eliot ‘Ash Wednesday’, 1954, p.88).

 “The pain of living and the drug of dreams

Curl up the small soul in the window seat.” (Eliot ‘Animula’, 1954, p.91).

“What seas what shores what grey rocks and what islands

What water lapping the bow

And scent pf pine and the woodthrush singing through the fog

What images return

O my daughter.

Those who sharpen the tooth of the dog, meaning

Death

Those who glitter with the glory of the hummingbird, meaning

Death

Those who sit in the sty of contentment, meaning

Death

Those who suffer the ecstasy of animals, meaning

Death

Are become unsubstantial, reduced by a wind,

A breath of pine, and the woodsong fog

By this grace dissolved in place.” (Eliot ‘Marina’, 1954, p.93).

“The Eagle soars in the summit of Heaven,

The Hunter with his dogs pursues his circuit.

O perpetual revolution of configured stars,

O perpetual recurrence of determined seasons,

O world of spring and autumn, birth and dying!

The endless cycle of idea and action,

Endless invention, endless experiment,

Brings knowledge and motion, but not of stillness;

Knowledge of speech, but not of silence;

Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word.

All our knowledge brings us nearer to death,

But nearness to death no nearer to GOD.

Where is the Life we have lost in living?

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?

Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?” (Eliot ‘Choruses from the Rock’, 1954, p.97).

“All men are ready to invest their money

But most expect dividends.

I say to you: Make perfect your will.

I say: take no thought of the harvest,

But only of proper sowing.” (Eliot ‘Choruses from the Rock’, 1954, p.99).

“Of all that was done in the past, you eat the fruit, either rotten or ripe.

And the Church must be forever building, and always decaying, and always being restored.” (Eliot ‘Choruses from the Rock’, 1954, p.103).

“When the Stranger says: ‘What is the meaning of this city?

Do you huddle close together because you love each other?’

What will be your answer? ‘We all dwell together

To make money from each other’? or ‘This is a community’?

And the Stranger will depart and return to the desert.

O my soul, be prepared for the coming of the Stranger,

Be prepared for him who knows how to ask questions.

O weariness of men who turn from GOD

To the grandeur of your mind and the glory of your action,

To arts and inventions and daring enterprises,

To schemes of human greatness thoroughly discredited,

Binding the earth and the water to your service,

Exploiting the seas and developing the mountains,

Dividing the stars into common and preferred,

Engaged in devising the perfect refrigerator,

Engaged in woring out a rational morality,

Engaged in printing as many books as possible,

Plotting of happiness and flinging empty bottles,

Turning from your vacancy to fevered enthusiasm

For nation or race or what you call humanity;

Though you forget the way to the Temple,

There is one who remembers the way to your door:

Life you may evade, but Death you shall not.

You shall not deny the Stranger.” (Eliot ‘Choruses from the Rock’, 1954, p.107).

“…what have we to do

But stand with empty hands and palms turned upwards

In an age which advances progressively backwards?” (Eliot ‘Choruses from the Rock’, 1954, p.110).

“Out of the formless stone, when the artist unites himself with stone,

Spring always new forms of life, from the soul of man that is joined to the soul of stone;” “…what have we to do

But stand with empty hands and palms turned upwards

In an age which advances progressively backwards?” (Eliot ‘Choruses from the Rock’, 1954, p.111).

“The LORD who created must wish us to create

And employ our creation again in His service

Which is already His service in creating.” (Eliot ‘Choruses from the Rock’, 1954, p.112).

“Light.

Light.

The visible reminder of Invisible Light.” (Eliot ‘Choruses from the Rock’, 1954, p.112).

“Be not too curious if Good and Evil;

Seek not to count the future waves of Time;

But be ye satisfied that you have light

Enough to take your step and find your foothold.” (Eliot ‘Choruses from the Rock’, 1954, p.113).

“Our gaze is submarine, our eyes look upward

And see the light that fractures through unquiet water.

We see ligh but see not whence it comes.

O Light invisible, we glorify Thee!” (Eliot ‘Choruses from the Rock’, 1954, p.114).