The Project Gutenberg eBook ofPoemsThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: PoemsAuthor: T. S. EliotRelease date: December 1, 1998 [eBook #1567]Most recently updated: November 22, 2021Language: EnglishCredits: Bill Brewer and David Widger*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POEMS ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: PoemsAuthor: T. S. EliotRelease date: December 1, 1998 [eBook #1567]Most recently updated: November 22, 2021Language: EnglishCredits: Bill Brewer and David Widger
Title: Poems
Author: T. S. Eliot
Author: T. S. Eliot
Release date: December 1, 1998 [eBook #1567]Most recently updated: November 22, 2021
Language: English
Credits: Bill Brewer and David Widger
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POEMS ***
CONTENTS
POEMS
Gerontion
Burbank with a Baedeker: Bleistein with a Cigar
Sweeney Erect
A Cooking Egg
Le Directeur
Mélange adultère de tout
Lune de Miel
The Hippopotamus
Dans le Restaurant
Whispers of Immortality
Mr. Eliot's Sunday Morning Service
Sweeney Among the Nightingales
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
Portrait of a Lady
Preludes
Rhapsody on a Windy Night
Morning at the Window
The Boston Evening Transcript
Aunt Helen
Cousin Nancy
Mr. Apollinax
Hysteria
Conversation Galante
La Figlia Che Piange
Thou hast nor youth nor ageBut as it were an after dinner sleepDreaming of both.
Here I am, an old man in a dry month,Being read to by a boy, waiting for rain.I was neither at the hot gatesNor fought in the warm rainNor knee deep in the salt marsh, heaving a cutlass,Bitten by flies, fought.My house is a decayed house,And the jew squats on the window sill, the owner,Spawned in some estaminet of Antwerp,Blistered in Brussels, patched and peeled in London.The goat coughs at night in the field overhead;Rocks, moss, stonecrop, iron, merds.The woman keeps the kitchen, makes tea,Sneezes at evening, poking the peevish gutter.I an old man,A dull head among windy spaces.Signs are taken for wonders. "We would see a sign":The word within a word, unable to speak a word,Swaddled with darkness. In the juvescence of the yearCame Christ the tigerIn depraved May, dogwood and chestnut, flowering Judas,To be eaten, to be divided, to be drunkAmong whispers; by Mr. SilveroWith caressing hands, at LimogesWho walked all night in the next room;By Hakagawa, bowing among the Titians;By Madame de Tornquist, in the dark roomShifting the candles; Fraulein von KulpWho turned in the hall, one hand on the door. Vacant shuttlesWeave the wind. I have no ghosts,An old man in a draughty houseUnder a windy knob.After such knowledge, what forgiveness? Think nowHistory has many cunning passages, contrived corridorsAnd issues, deceives with whispering ambitions,Guides us by vanities. Think nowShe gives when our attention is distractedAnd what she gives, gives with such supple confusionsThat the giving famishes the craving. Gives too lateWhat's not believed in, or if still believed,In memory only, reconsidered passion. Gives too soonInto weak hands, what's thought can be dispensed withTill the refusal propagates a fear. ThinkNeither fear nor courage saves us. Unnatural vicesAre fathered by our heroism. VirtuesAre forced upon us by our impudent crimes.These tears are shaken from the wrath-bearing tree.The tiger springs in the new year. Us he devours. Think at lastWe have not reached conclusion, when IStiffen in a rented house. Think at lastI have not made this show purposelesslyAnd it is not by any concitationOf the backward devils.I would meet you upon this honestly.I that was near your heart was removed therefromTo lose beauty in terror, terror in inquisition.I have lost my passion: why should I need to keep itSince what is kept must be adulterated?I have lost my sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch:How should I use it for your closer contact?These with a thousand small deliberationsProtract the profit of their chilled delirium,Excite the membrane, when the sense has cooled,With pungent sauces, multiply varietyIn a wilderness of mirrors. What will the spider do,Suspend its operations, will the weevilDelay? De Bailhache, Fresca, Mrs. Cammel, whirledBeyond the circuit of the shuddering BearIn fractured atoms. Gull against the wind, in the windy straitsOf Belle Isle, or running on the Horn,White feathers in the snow, the Gulf claims,And an old man driven by the TradesTo a sleepy corner.Tenants of the house,Thoughts of a dry brain in a dry season.
Tra-la-la-la-la-la-laire—nil nisi divinum stabileest; caetera fumus—the gondola stopped, the oldpalace was there, how charming its grey and pink—goats and monkeys, with such hair too!—so thecountess passed on until she came through thelittle park, where Niobe presented her with acabinet, and so departed.
Burbank crossed a little bridgeDescending at a small hotel;Princess Volupine arrived,They were together, and he fell.Defunctive music under seaPassed seaward with the passing bellSlowly: the God HerculesHad left him, that had loved him well.The horses, under the axletreeBeat up the dawn from IstriaWith even feet. Her shuttered bargeBurned on the water all the day.But this or such was Bleistein's way:A saggy bending of the kneesAnd elbows, with the palms turned out,Chicago Semite Viennese.A lustreless protrusive eyeStares from the protozoic slimeAt a perspective of Canaletto.The smoky candle end of timeDeclines. On the Rialto once.The rats are underneath the piles.The jew is underneath the lot.Money in furs. The boatman smiles,Princess Volupine extendsA meagre, blue-nailed, phthisic handTo climb the waterstair. Lights, lights,She entertains Sir FerdinandKlein. Who clipped the lion's wingsAnd flea'd his rump and pared his claws?Thought Burbank, meditating onTime's ruins, and the seven laws.
And the trees about me,Let them be dry and leafless; let the rocksGroan with continual surges; and behind meMake all a desolation. Look, look, wenches!
Paint me a cavernous waste shoreCast in the unstilted Cyclades,Paint me the bold anfractuous rocksFaced by the snarled and yelping seas.Display me Aeolus aboveReviewing the insurgent galesWhich tangle Ariadne's hairAnd swell with haste the perjured sails.Morning stirs the feet and hands(Nausicaa and Polypheme),Gesture of orang-outangRises from the sheets in steam.This withered root of knots of hairSlitted below and gashed with eyes,This oval O cropped out with teeth:The sickle motion from the thighsJackknifes upward at the kneesThen straightens out from heel to hipPushing the framework of the bedAnd clawing at the pillow slip.Sweeney addressed full length to shaveBroadbottomed, pink from nape to base,Knows the female temperamentAnd wipes the suds around his face.(The lengthened shadow of a manIs history, said EmersonWho had not seen the silhouetteOf Sweeney straddled in the sun).Tests the razor on his legWaiting until the shriek subsides.The epileptic on the bedCurves backward, clutching at her sides.The ladies of the corridorFind themselves involved, disgraced,Call witness to their principlesAnd deprecate the lack of tasteObserving that hysteriaMight easily be misunderstood;Mrs. Turner intimatesIt does the house no sort of good.But Doris, towelled from the bath,Enters padding on broad feet,Bringing sal volatileAnd a glass of brandy neat.
En l'an trentiesme de mon aageQue toutes mes hontes j'ay beues...
Pipit sate upright in her chairSome distance from where I was sitting;Views of the Oxford CollegesLay on the table, with the knitting.Daguerreotypes and silhouettes,Her grandfather and great great aunts,Supported on the mantelpieceAn Invitation to the Dance.. . . . . .I shall not want Honour in HeavenFor I shall meet Sir Philip SidneyAnd have talk with CoriolanusAnd other heroes of that kidney.I shall not want Capital in HeavenFor I shall meet Sir Alfred Mond:We two shall lie together, laptIn a five per cent Exchequer Bond.I shall not want Society in Heaven,Lucretia Borgia shall be my Bride;Her anecdotes will be more amusingThan Pipit's experience could provide.I shall not want Pipit in Heaven:Madame Blavatsky will instruct meIn the Seven Sacred Trances;Piccarda de Donati will conduct me.. . . . . .But where is the penny world I boughtTo eat with Pipit behind the screen?The red-eyed scavengers are creepingFrom Kentish Town and Golder's Green;Where are the eagles and the trumpets?Buried beneath some snow-deep Alps.Over buttered scones and crumpetsWeeping, weeping multitudesDroop in a hundred A.B.C.'s["ABC's" signifes endemic teashops, found in all parts ofLondon. The initials signify "Aerated Bread Company,Limited."—Project Gutenberg Editor's replacement oforiginal footnote]
Malheur à la malheureuse Tamise!Tamisel Qui coule si pres du Spectateur.Le directeurConservateurDu SpectateurEmpeste la brise.Les actionnairesRéactionnairesDu SpectateurConservateurBras dessus bras dessousFont des toursA pas de loup.Dans un égoutUne petite filleEn guenillesCamardeRegardeLe directeurDu SpectateurConservateurEt crève d'amour.
En Amerique, professeur;En Angleterre, journaliste;C'est à grands pas et en sueurQue vous suivrez à peine ma piste.En Yorkshire, conferencier;A Londres, un peu banquier,Vous me paierez bien la tête.C'est à Paris que je me coiffeCasque noir de jemenfoutiste.En Allemagne, philosopheSurexcité par EmporhebenAu grand air de Bergsteigleben;J'erre toujours de-ci de-làA divers coups de tra la laDe Damas jusqu'à Omaha.Je celebrai mon jour de fêteDans une oasis d'AfriqueVêtu d'une peau de girafe.On montrera mon cénotapheAux côtes brûlantes de Mozambique.
Ils ont vu les Pays-Bas, ils rentrent à Terre Haute;Mais une nuit d'été, les voici à Ravenne,A l'sur le dos écartant les genouxDe quatre jambes molles tout gonflées de morsures.On relève le drap pour mieux égratigner.Moins d'une lieue d'ici est Saint ApollinaireIn Classe, basilique connue des amateursDe chapitaux d'acanthe que touraoie le vent.Ils vont prendre le train de huit heuresProlonger leurs misères de Padoue à MilanOu se trouvent le Cène, et un restaurant pas cher.Lui pense aux pourboires, et redige son bilan.Ils auront vu la Suisse et traversé la France.Et Saint Apollinaire, raide et ascétique,Vieille usine désaffectée de Dieu, tient encoreDans ses pierres ècroulantes la forme precise de Byzance.
Similiter et omnes revereantur Diaconos, utmandatum Jesu Christi; et Episcopum, ut JesumChristum, existentem filium Patris; Presbyterosautem, ut concilium Dei et conjunctionemApostolorum. Sine his Ecclesia non vocatur; dequibus suadeo vos sic habeo.S. IGNATII AD TRALLIANOS.And when this epistle is read among you, causethat it be read also in the church of theLaodiceans.
The broad-backed hippopotamusRests on his belly in the mud;Although he seems so firm to usHe is merely flesh and blood.Flesh-and-blood is weak and frail,Susceptible to nervous shock;While the True Church can never failFor it is based upon a rock.The hippo's feeble steps may errIn compassing material ends,While the True Church need never stirTo gather in its dividends.The 'potamus can never reachThe mango on the mango-tree;But fruits of pomegranate and peachRefresh the Church from over sea.At mating time the hippo's voiceBetrays inflexions hoarse and odd,But every week we hear rejoiceThe Church, at being one with God.The hippopotamus's dayIs passed in sleep; at night he hunts;God works in a mysterious way-The Church can sleep and feed at once.I saw the 'potamus take wingAscending from the damp savannas,And quiring angels round him singThe praise of God, in loud hosannas.Blood of the Lamb shall wash him cleanAnd him shall heavenly arms enfold,Among the saints he shall be seenPerforming on a harp of gold.He shall be washed as white as snow,By all the martyr'd virgins kiss,While the True Church remains belowWrapt in the old miasmal mist.
Le garcon délabré qui n'a rien à faireQue de se gratter les doigts et se pencher sur mon épaule:"Dans mon pays il fera temps pluvieux,Du vent, du grand soleil, et de la pluie;C'est ce qu'on appelle le jour de lessive des gueux."(Bavard, baveux, à la croupe arrondie,Je te prie, au moins, ne bave pas dans la soupe)."Les saules trempés, et des bourgeons sur les ronces—C'est là, dans une averse, qu'on s'abrite.J'avais septtans, elle était plus petite.Elle etait toute mouillée, je lui ai donné des primavères."Les tâches de son gilet montent au chiffre de trente-huit."Je la chatouillais, pour la faire rire.J'éprouvais un instant de puissance et de délire."Mais alors, vieux lubrique, a cet âge..."Monsieur, le fait est dur.Il est venu, nous peloter, un gros chien;Moi j'avais peur, je l'ai quittee a mi-chemin.C'est dommage."Mais alors, tu as ton vautour!Va t'en te décrotter les rides du visage;Tiens, ma fourchette, décrasse-toi le crâne.De quel droit payes-tu des expériences comme moi?Tiens, voilà dix sous, pour la salle-de-bains.Phlébas, le Phénicien, pendant quinze jours noyé,Oubliait les cris des mouettes et la houle de Cornouaille,Et les profits et les pertes, et la cargaison d'etain:Un courant de sous-mer l'emporta tres loin,Le repassant aux étapes de sa vie antérieure.Figurez-vous donc, c'etait un sort penible;Cependant, ce fut jadis un bel homme, de haute taille.
Webster was much possessed by deathAnd saw the skull beneath the skin;And breastless creatures under groundLeaned backward with a lipless grin.Daffodil bulbs instead of ballsStared from the sockets of the eyes!He knew that thought clings round dead limbsTightening its lusts and luxuries.Donne, I suppose, was such anotherWho found no substitute for sense;To seize and clutch and penetrate,Expert beyond experience,He knew the anguish of the marrowThe ague of the skeleton;No contact possible to fleshAllayed the fever of the bone.. . . . .Grishkin is nice: her Russian eyeIs underlined for emphasis;Uncorseted, her friendly bustGives promise of pneumatic bliss.The couched Brazilian jaguarCompels the scampering marmosetWith subtle effluence of cat;Grishkin has a maisonette;The sleek Brazilian jaguarDoes not in its arboreal gloomDistil so rank a feline smellAs Grishkin in a drawing-room.And even the Abstract EntitiesCircumambulate her charm;But our lot crawls between dry ribsTo keep our metaphysics warm.
Look, look, master, here comes two religiouscaterpillars.The Jew of Malta.
PolyphiloprogenitiveThe sapient sutlers of the LordDrift across the window-panes.In the beginning was the Word.In the beginning was the Word.Superfetation of [Greek text inserted here],And at the mensual turn of timeProduced enervate Origen.A painter of the Umbrian schoolDesigned upon a gesso groundThe nimbus of the Baptized God.The wilderness is cracked and brownedBut through the water pale and thinStill shine the unoffending feetAnd there above the painter setThe Father and the Paraclete.. . . . .The sable presbyters approachThe avenue of penitence;The young are red and pustularClutching piaculative pence.Under the penitential gatesSustained by staring SeraphimWhere the souls of the devoutBurn invisible and dim.Along the garden-wall the beesWith hairy bellies pass betweenThe staminate and pistilate,Blest office of the epicene.Sweeney shifts from ham to hamStirring the water in his bath.The masters of the subtle schoolsAre controversial, polymath.
[Greek text inserted here]
Apeneck Sweeney spreads his kneesLetting his arms hang down to laugh,The zebra stripes along his jawSwelling to maculate giraffe.The circles of the stormy moonSlide westward toward the River Plate,Death and the Raven drift aboveAnd Sweeney guards the hornèd gate.Gloomy Orion and the DogAre veiled; and hushed the shrunken seas;The person in the Spanish capeTries to sit on Sweeney's kneesSlips and pulls the table clothOverturns a coffee-cup,Reorganized upon the floorShe yawns and draws a stocking up;The silent man in mocha brownSprawls at the window-sill and gapes;The waiter brings in orangesBananas figs and hothouse grapes;The silent vertebrate in brownContracts and concentrates, withdraws;Rachel née RabinovitchTears at the grapes with murderous paws;She and the lady in the capeAre suspect, thought to be in league;Therefore the man with heavy eyesDeclines the gambit, shows fatigue,Leaves the room and reappearsOutside the window, leaning in,Branches of wisteriaCircumscribe a golden grin;The host with someone indistinctConverses at the door apart,The nightingales are singing nearThe Convent of the Sacred Heart,And sang within the bloody woodWhen Agamemnon cried aloud,And let their liquid droppings fallTo stain the stiff dishonoured shroud.
S'io credesse che mia risposta fosseA persona che mai tornasse al mondo,Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondoNon 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 skyLike a patient etherized upon a table;Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,The muttering retreatsOf restless nights in one-night cheap hotelsAnd sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:Streets that follow like a tedious argumentOf insidious intentTo 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 goTalking of Michelangelo.The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panesLicked 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 timeFor the yellow smoke that slides along the street,Rubbing its back upon the window panes;There will be time, there will be timeTo prepare a face to meet the faces that you meetThere will be time to murder and create,And time for all the works and days of handsThat 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 goTalking of Michelangelo.And indeed there will be timeTo 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 dareDisturb the universe?In a minute there is timeFor 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 fallBeneath 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 beginTo 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!)Is it perfume from a dressThat 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 streetsAnd watched the smoke that rises from the pipesOf lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?I should have been a pair of ragged clawsScuttling 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 ballTo 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 thefloor—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 whileIf 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 doTo 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 wavesCombing the white hair of the waves blown backWhen the wind blows the water white and black.We have lingered in the chambers of the seaBy sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brownTill human voices wake us, and we drown.
Thou hast committed—Fornication: but that was in another countryAnd besides, the wench is dead.The Jew of Malta.
IAmong the smoke and fog of a December afternoonYou have the scene arrange itself—as it will seem to do—With "I have saved this afternoon for you";And four wax candles in the darkened room,Four rings of light upon the ceiling overhead,An atmosphere of Juliet's tombPrepared for all the things to be said, or left unsaid.We have been, let us say, to hear the latest PoleTransmit the Preludes, through his hair and finger-tips."So intimate, this Chopin, that I think his soulShould be resurrected only among friendsSome two or three, who will not touch the bloomThat is rubbed and questioned in the concert room."—And so the conversation slipsAmong velleities and carefully caught regretsThrough attenuated tones of violinsMingled with remote cornetsAnd begins."You do not know how much they mean to me, my friends,And how, how rare and strange it is, to findIn a life composed so much, so much of odds and ends,(For indeed I do not love it... you knew? you are not blind!How keen you are!)To find a friend who has these qualities,Who has, and givesThose qualities upon which friendship lives.How much it means that I say this to you—Without these friendships—life, what cauchemar!"Among the windings of the violinsAnd the ariettesOf cracked cornetsInside my brain a dull tom-tom beginsAbsurdly hammering a prelude of its own,Capricious monotoneThat is at least one definite "false note."—Let us take the air, in a tobacco trance,Admire the monumentsDiscuss the late events,Correct our watches by the public clocks.Then sit for half an hour and drink our bocks.IINow that lilacs are in bloomShe has a bowl of lilacs in her roomAnd twists one in her fingers while she talks."Ah, my friend, you do not know, you do not knowWhat life is, you should hold it in your hands";(Slowly twisting the lilac stalks)"You let it flow from you, you let it flow,And youth is cruel, and has no remorseAnd smiles at situations which it cannot see."I smile, of course,And go on drinking tea."Yet with these April sunsets, that somehow recallMy buried life, and Paris in the Spring,I feel immeasurably at peace, and find the worldTo be wonderful and youthful, after all."The voice returns like the insistent out-of-tuneOf a broken violin on an August afternoon:"I am always sure that you understandMy feelings, always sure that you feel,Sure that across the gulf you reach your hand.You are invulnerable, you have no Achilles' heel.You will go on, and when you have prevailedYou can say: at this point many a one has failed.But what have I, but what have I, my friend,To give you, what can you receive from me?Only the friendship and the sympathyOf one about to reach her journey's end.I shall sit here, serving tea to friends...."I take my hat: how can I make a cowardly amendsFor what she has said to me?You will see me any morning in the parkReading the comics and the sporting page.Particularly I remark An English countess goes upon the stage.A Greek was murdered at a Polish dance,Another bank defaulter has confessed.I keep my countenance, I remain self-possessedExcept when a street piano, mechanical and tiredReiterates some worn-out common songWith the smell of hyacinths across the gardenRecalling things that other people have desired.Are these ideas right or wrong?IIIThe October night comes down; returning as beforeExcept for a slight sensation of being ill at easeI mount the stairs and turn the handle of the doorAnd feel as if I had mounted on my hands and knees."And so you are going abroad; and when do you return?But that's a useless question.You hardly know when you are coming back,You will find so much to learn."My smile falls heavily among the bric-à-brac."Perhaps you can write to me."My self-possession flares up for a second;This is as I had reckoned."I have been wondering frequently of late(But our beginnings never know our ends!)Why we have not developed into friends."I feel like one who smiles, and turning shall remarkSuddenly, his expression in a glass.My self-possession gutters; we are really in the dark."For everybody said so, all our friends,They all were sure our feelings would relateSo closely! I myself can hardly understand.We must leave it now to fate.You will write, at any rate.Perhaps it is not too late.I shall sit here, serving tea to friends."And I must borrow every changing shapeTo find expression... dance, danceLike a dancing bear,Cry like a parrot, chatter like an ape.Let us take the air, in a tobacco trance—Well! and what if she should die some afternoon,Afternoon grey and smoky, evening yellow and rose;Should die and leave me sitting pen in handWith the smoke coming down above the housetops;Doubtful, for quite a whileNot knowing what to feel or if I understandOr whether wise or foolish, tardy or too soon...Would she not have the advantage, after all?This music is successful with a "dying fall"Now that we talk of dying—And should I have the right to smile?