Eliot, Thomas Stearns;
T. S. Eliot : Collected Poems, 1909 - 1962
Harcourt, Brace and World, 1963, pages
ISBN 0571105483 / B001TIC7D0
topics: | poetry
THE HOLLOW MEN 1925 Mistah Kurtz-he dead. The Hollow Men A penny for the Old Guy I We are the hollow men We are the stuffed men Leaning together Headpiece filled with straw. Alas! Our dried voices, when We whisper together Are quiet and meaningless As wind in dry grass Or rats' feet over broken glass In our dry cellar Shape without form, shade without colour, Paralysed force, gesture without motion; Those who have crossed With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom Remember us - if at all - not as lost Violent souls, but only As the hollow men The stuffed men. II Eyes I dare not meet in dreams In death's dream kingdom These do not appear: There, the eyes are Sunlight on a broken column There, is a tree swinging And voices are In the wind's singing More distant and more solemn Than a fading star. Let me be no nearer In death's dream kingdom Let me also wear Such deliberate disguises Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves In a field Behaving as the wind behaves No nearer - Not that final meeting In the twilight kingdom III This is the dead land This is cactus land Here the stone images Are raised, here they receive The supplication of a dead man's hand Under the twinkle of a fading star. Is it like this In death's other kingdom Waking alone At the hour when we are Trembling with tenderness Lips that would kiss Form prayers to broken stone. IV The eyes are not here There are no eyes here In this valley of dying stars In this hollow valley This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms In this last of meeting places We grope together And avoid speech Gathered on this beach of the tumid river Sightless, unless The eyes reappear As the perpetual star Multifoliate rose Of death's twilight kingdom The hope only Of empty men. V Here we go round the prickly pear Prickly pear prickly pear Here we go round the prickly pear At five o'clock in the morning. Between the idea And the reality Between the motion And the act Falls the Shadow For Thine is the Kingdom Between the conception And the creation Between the emotion And the response Falls the Shadow Life is very long Between the desire And the spasm Between the potency And the existence Between the essence And the descent Falls the Shadow For Thine is the Kingdom For Thine is Life is For Thine is the This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper.
the hollow men may be the most widely-read in all of eliot poetry; striking in construction and theme, it echoes a bleakness and pessimism - the spiritual quest, as hinted in but not asserted in Prufrock, is of no avail. death's twilight kingdom beckons, and everywhere across our hollowness there looms the shadow. in the end, the world ends most famously, not with a bang but a whimper. despite its apparent unity of theme (or at least the unity we see now that it is so familiar), it seems the poem was assembled of parts of somewhat accidental provenance. part iii (this is the dead land...) was first published as part of “doris’s dream songs” in 1924, and was later included as part of the unfinished verse play sweeney agonistes. indeed, russell murphy, in his critical companion to t.s. eliot, suggests that much of the material was "stumbled on" - taken from tangential sketches written for several pieces. the notion of hollow men reflects the droll repetitive jobs entailed in the industrial economy. the reference to kurtz from conrad’s heart of darkness (1899) in the opening epigram, reflects a strong thematic bond. kurtz himself is "hollow at the core": i think [the wilderness] had whispered to him things about himself which he did not know, things of which he had no conception till he took counsel with this great solitude -- and the whisper had proved irresistibly fascinating. it echoed loudly within him because he was hollow at the core. a few pages later, as Kurtz lies dying, just before manager's the boy says: Mistah Kurtz-he dead, he is seen to be a "hollow sham". Elsewhere in the book also, a manager at the central station is talked of as "perhaps there was nothing within him."; later, another oily company agent vying to rise up in the organization is described as a "papier-mache" man. in eliot, we find a similar craft allusion in the head stuffed with straw. as hollow men we have lost faith - the shadow has fallen between the idea - the potential, the conception - and what is finally created, the reality, what exists. there is a hole in our ambition. and even our speech is stilled - in this lost kingdom, our jaws are broken and we can only grope towards each other in silence. our ability to love has faltered - "lips that would kiss / form prayers to broken stone". and these prayers, we find in the closing part, are futile. in fact, we can't even say the whole prayer, it comes ut in stumbling pieces, and the kingdom, the power, and the glory, now and forever - remain a dream as the world ends.
How unpleasant to meet Mr. Eliot! With his features of clerical cut, And his brow so grim And his mouth so prim And his conversation, so nicely Restricted to What Precisely And If and Perhaps and But. How unpleasant to meet Mr. Eliot! With a bobtail cur In a coat of fur And a porpentine cat And a wopsical hat: How unpleasant to meet Mr. Eliot! (Whether his mouth be open or shut).
mirza murad ali beg is a fictitious author on "native life", referred to in kipling's story to be filed for reference: "This," he said, "is my work — the Book of McIntosh Jellaludin, showing what he saw and how he lived, and what befell him and others; being also an account of the life and sins and death of Mother Maturin. What Mirza Murad Ali Beg's book is to all other books on native life, will my work be to Mirza Murad Ali Beg's!" Cuscuscaraway most likely belongs to the genre of porpentine cats and wopsical hats.
3 The Love Song of J. Alfred Pruftock 8 Portrait of a Lady 13 Preludes 16 Rhapsody on a Windy Ntght 19 Morning at the W mdow 20 The Boston Evemng TranscrIpt 21 Aunt Helen 22 Cousin Nancy 23 Mr. Apollinax 24 Hysteria 25 Conoe1sation Galante 26 La Figlia che Piange
29 Gerontion 32 Burbank with a Baedeker: Bleistein with a Cigar 34 Sweeney Erect 36 A Cooking Egg 38 Le Directeur 39 Melange Adultere de Tout 40 Lune de Miel 41 The Hippopotamus 43 Dans le Restaurant [later, this poem becomes part IV of The Waste Land] 45 Whtspers of Immortality 47 Mr. Eliot's Sunday Morning Service 49 Sweeney Among the Nightingales
53 I. The Burial of the Dead 56 II. A Game of Chess 60 III. The Fire Sermon 65 IV. Death by Water 66 V. What the Thunder Said
77 The Hollow Men--
85 I. Because I do not hope to turn again 87 II. Lady, three white leopards sat under a juniper-tree 89 III. At the first turning of the second stair 90 IV. Who walked between the violet and the violet 92 V. If the lost word is lost, if the spent word is spent 94 VI. Although 1 do not hope to turn again
99 Journey of the Magi-1927 101 A Song for Simeon-1928 103 Animula-1929 105 MarinOr-1930 107 The Cultivatton of Christmas Trees-1954
111 Sweeney Agonistes 111 fragment of a prologue 118 fragment of an agon 125 Coriolan 125 I. triumphal march-1931 127 ii. difficulties of a statesman
133 Eyes that last I saw in tears 134 The wind sprang up at four o'clock 135 Five-finger exercises 135 i. lines to a persian cat 135 ii. lines to a yorkshire terrier 136 iii. lines t0 a duck in the park 136 iv. lines to ralph hodgson esqure. 137 V. lines for cuscuscaraway and mirza murad ali beg
138 I NEW HAMPSHIRE 139 II. VIRGINIA 140 III. USK 141 IV. BANNOCH, BY GLENCOE 142 V CAPE ANN 143 Lines for an Old Man 145 CHORUSES FROM 'THE ROCK'-1934 147 I. The Eagle soars in the summit of HeaDen 152 II Thus your fathel's were made 155 III. The Word of the LOR D came unto me, saying 158 IV. There are those who would budd the Temple 159 V. 0 Lord, deliver me from the man of excellent intention and impure heart 160 VI. It tS hard for those who have never known persecution 162 VII. In the beginning GOD created the world 165 VIII. 0 Father we welcome your words 167 IX. Son of Man, behold with thine eyes, and hear with thine ears 169 X. You have seen the house built, you have seen it adorned
175 Burnt Norton-1935 182 East Coker-1940 191 The Dry Salvages-1941 200 Little Gidding-1942
213 Defense of the Islands 215 A Note on War Poetry 217 To the Indians Who Died tn Africa 219 To Walter de la Mare 221 A Dedication to My Wife