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Tuesday, January 18, 2005

from "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

--------------by T.S. Eliot

...
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? ...


...
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.



The poem was too long for me to post all of it. If anyone wants to read the whole thing, here it is.

posted by Skrambled Egghead Reborn @ 1:08 PM

2 Comments:

Ah, J Alfred Prufrock. It's funny, we had to read this poem for our AP English class. Our teacher (who was the most awesome teacher I've had, btw) explained it in the sense that we had to "dance" with the poems. Boy did I ever tango with this one. I ended up really liking it though- and the ending I particularly like. Have you ever seen the movie "Till human voices wake us?" (I think that's what it's called) that has Helena Bonham Carter and Guy Pierce if I recall correctly.. Anyway, have a lovely, pointless day ;).

By Blogger Hans the Destroyer, at 4:22 PM  

Ah yes, Eliot certainly is the cynic's poet. The Waste Land is another one of my favorites, Forgotten. I'll probably be quoting from that on April 1st. I think my favorite from Eliot is The Hollow Men, which I posted here not too long ago. It has all the cynicism of the Waste Land wrapped up in a smaller package. Here is a link: http://www.cs.umbc.edu/~evans/hollow.html.

I've never heard of that movie, Hansy, but I'll be looking for it (unless you write back and tell me it's an awful movie or something). There are quite a few good lines in Prufrock. I like the line: "I have measured out my life with coffee spoons", though I'm not sure that I'm understanding it correctly. I guess I see it as going along with his being "politic, cautious, meticulous". I'm sort of a creature of habit in that way: every morning I brew a pot of coffee with three scoops of coffee, so I guess I could count up the days and come up with my age in coffee spoons. I'm not quite so cautious and meticulous as the speaker in this poem, but this poem really speaks to me in many ways.

By Blogger Skrambled Egghead Reborn, at 10:15 AM  

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