S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero,
Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.
Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question …
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.
The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.
And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.
And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—
[They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”]
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—
[They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”]
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
For I have known them all already, known them all:—
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?
And I have known the eyes already, known them all—
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?
And I have known the arms already, known them all—
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]
It is perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?
Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?…
I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep … tired … or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.
And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: “That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all.”
And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
“That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all.”
No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.
I grow old … I grow old …
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that 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.
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This is one my favorites by him. That is probably because it's the first poem that I ever read by him. lol
I love the following lines:
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.
and
I grow old … I grow old …
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
First read this poem in middle school. I checked out Complete Poems and Plays: 1909-1950 from the library.
- Aly
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"So how should I presume? "
What a great poem. one of my favorites. TS Eliot is the greatest. "Do I dare disturb the universe?" -
An explanation:
The Italian epigraph quotes a damned soul that Dante encounters on his journey through Hell in the Inferno. He explains to Dante that he answers his questions only because he believes that Dante will never return to the living world (therefore his words carry no consequences) The narrator of this poem, similarly, will not act on his desires for fear of rejection, creating, in a sense his own hell on earth.
Clear as Mud!
Von
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Do I dare to eat a peach
From guest blindflight (contact)
I love this line!! He says so much with so little -
One of my favourite poems of all times. I wish I could write like that. XP
"I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid." ...Wow -
Wonderful, wonderful poetry.
Just a note though, in lines 81-82, "It is perfume from a dress/
That makes me so digress?" should read "*Is it* perfume from a dress/ That makes me so digress?"
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Correction
The ellipses before line 70 and after line 74 and after line 110. Are all missing, these were put in the poem specifically by the poet to separate it from the poem and should be put into it.. Those of you not familiar with an ellipse ( ... ) after and before these lines it appears as
". . . . . ." -
actually "Is it" is on line 65
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I really love the parts about time in this poem- I always get excited when I see "coffee spoons" mentioned in other works.
.:Marie:. -
A fantastic poem we studied in English a little while back...T.S. Eliot is an absolute master. Even when you don't know precisely what he's saying, the message of what he means comes across loud and clear. He's managed to use language that way.
My favorite lines, besides the John the Baptist allusion:
"I grow old ... I grow old ...
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled."
I say this all the time! -
I really like this poem. Really, really do. Something about the stream-of-consciousness technique he uses here just draws me to it... We just studied this in Honors English. It is absolutely brilliant. Prufrock has so many problems. Love the lines "There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet" and especially "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." Why can't I go into such a fantasy world, only to be overwhelmed by the reality of the world? -
HE HAS TIME FOR EVERYTHING VISSIONS AND DECISIONS AND REVISIONS.
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Ah, the single best piece of poetry ever written, in my opinion.
Even further down than Hamlet, Prufrock doesn't even dare to question anything except whether or not he will question, and in the end is left with absolute inaction, the only answer to a world in which understanding is impossible.
Edited on Feb 19, 8:56 p.m. because ''. -
Thank you Richard, all fixed now.
AndrewHide -
There is a spelling error on line eight
"When the evening is sxread out against the sky"
should read:
When the evening is spread out against the sky"
lousy poet hackers, they are everywhere
regarding the line
No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Ezra Pound wrote Harriet Monroe on Jan. 31, 1915:
I dislike the paragraph about Hamlet, but it is an early and cherished bit and T.E. won't give it up, and as it is the only portion of the poem that most readers will like at first reading, I don't see that it will do much harm" (Letters of Ezra Pound 1907-1941, ed. D. D. Paige [London: Faber and Faber, 1951]: 92-93).
~richard
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I need help picking out the figure of speech for particular lines in this poem and how they pertain to the nature, desire or fears of Prufrock. If ANYONE can help me, I would greatly appreciate it!!
I need to know for lines
2-3
15-22
57-58
73-74
75-78
105
124-131
and if anyone knows in what respect the title is ironic.
Thank you for your help! -
Stunning, Stellar Work
I'm not sure why, but this is my all-time favorite poem. It actually inspired me to write a long piece, which wasn't my wont. But it's smooth and filled with such beautiful, round language, it evokes the post-Victorian period so well. I see hazy London streets and cobblestones and horses and steam locomotives and hanging marbled sides of beef in Butcher's Row so clearly every time I read this. -
My seconf favorite of all time.'Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent...'
Man, is this beautiful!!!
Justin -
Hahahaha its funny
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