T.S. Eliot · 81 pages
Rating: (9.2K votes)
“These fragments I have shored against my ruins”
“Do I dare Disturb the universe?”
“Who is the third who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and I together
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you
Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
I do not know whether a man or a woman
-But who is that on the other side of you?”
“What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust. ”
“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.”
“My friend, blood shaking my heart
The awful daring of a moment’s surrender
Which an age of prudence can never retract
By this, and this only, we have existed
Which is not to be found in our obituaries
Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider
Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor
In our empty rooms”
“Tu nie ma wody tu jest tylko skała
Skała bez wody i piaszczysta droga
Droga wijąca się wśród gór nad nami
Między skałami głazami bez wody
Gdyby tu była woda stanąłbym i pił
Lecz pośród skał nie można myśleć ani stać
Suchy jest pot a stopy grzęzną w piachu
Gdyby tu woda spływała ze skał
Martwa jest paszcza gór spróchniałe zęby pluć nie mogą
Tutaj nie można usiąść leżeć ani stać
I ciszy nawet nie ma w górach
Tylko bezpłodny suchy grzmot bez deszczu
I samotności nawet nie ma w górach
Tylko posępne czerwone twarze - drwią i szydzą
W drzwiach lepianek z popękanej gliny
Gdyby tu była woda
A nie skała
Gdyby tu była skała
Ale i woda
I woda
Źródło
Sadzawka wśród skał
Gdyby tu był chociażby wody dźwięk
A nie cykada
I śpiew suchych traw
Ale na skale wody dźwięk
Gdzie drozd-pustelnik śpiewa pośród sosen
Krop kap krop kap kap kap kap
Ale tu nie ma wody
Kim jest ten trzeci, który zawsze idzie obok ciebie?
Gdy liczę nas, jesteśmy tylko ty i ja
Lecz gdy spoglądam przed siebie w biel drogi
Zawsze ktoś jeszcze idzie obok ciebie,
Stąpa spowity płaszczem brunatnym, w kapturze
Nie wiem czy jest to kobieta czy mąż
- Kim jest ten, który idzie po twej drugiej stronie?
Co to za dźwięki wysoko w powietrzu
Pomruk matczynych lamentów
Co to za hordy w kapturach, jak roje
Na bezkresnych równinach, utykają na spękanej ziemi
Otoczonej jedynie płaskim horyzontem
Co to za miasto nad łańcuchem gór
Pęka i zrasta się i rozpryskuje - w fioletowym wietrze
Walące się wieże
Jeruzalem Ateny Aleksandria
Wiedeń Londyn
Nierzeczywiste”
“I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter; I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,”
“I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.”
“His soul stretched tight across the skies
That fade behind a city block,
Or trampled by insistent feet
At four and five and six o’clock;”
“The people who hate Obamacare don’t hate it because they believe that it’s funded by forced purchases rather than forced taxes; what they hate is the forcing. Obamacare might not be socialism, but it’s certainly more collectivist than some people care for, restricting individual freedom in the name of the greater good. •”
“You need to recognize when you’re making a choice that requires willpower; otherwise, the brain always defaults to what is easiest.”
“When sleep came, I would dream bad dreams. Not the baby and the big man with a cigarette-lighter dream. Another dream. The castle dream.
A little girl of about six who looks -like me, but isn’t me, is happy as she steps out of the car with her daddy. They enter the castle and go down the steps to the dungeon where people move like shadows in the glow of burning candles. There are carpets and funny pictures on the walls. Some of the people wear hoods and robes. Sometimes they chant in droning voices that make the little girl afraid. There are other children, some of them without any clothes on. There is an altar like the altar in nearby St Mildred’s Church. The children take turns lying on that altar so the people, mostly men, but a few women, can kiss and lick their private parts. The daddy holds the hand of the little girl tightly. She looks up at him and he smiles. The little girl likes going out with her daddy.
I did want to tell Dr Purvis these dreams but I didn’t want her to think I was crazy, and so kept them to myself. The psychiatrist was wiser than I appreciated at the time; sixteen-year-olds imagine they are cleverer than they really are. Dr Purvis knew I had suffered psychological damage as a child, that’s why she kept making a fresh appointment week after week. But I was unable to give her the tools and clues to find out exactly what had happened.”
“One evening he was in his room, his brow pressing hard against the pane, looking, without seeing them, at the chestnut trees in the park, which had lost much of their russet-coloured foliage. A heavy mist obscured the distance, and the night was falling grey rather than black, stepping cautiously with its velvet feet upon the tops of the trees. A great swan plunged and replunged amorously its neck and shoulders into the smoking water of the river, and its whiteness made it show in the darkness like a great star of snow. It was the single living being that somewhat enlivened the lonely landscape.”
“And when your sorrow is comforted (time soothes all sorrows) you will be content that you have known me. You will always be my friend. You will want to laugh with me. And you will sometimes open your window, so, for that pleasure . . . And your friends will be properly astonished to see you laughing as you look up at the sky! Then you will say to them, 'Yes, the stars always make me laugh!' And they will think you are crazy. It will be a very shabby trick that I shall have played on you...”
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