The Waste Land and Other Poems by T. S. Eliot Read Free Book Online Page A

housemaids
Sprouting despondently at area gates.
     
    The brown waves of fog toss up to me
Twisted faces from the bottom of the street,
And tear from a passer-by with muddy skirts
An aimless smile that hovers in the air
And vanishes along the level of the roofs.

The Boston Evening Transcript
    The readers of the Boston Evening Transcript
Sway in the wind like a field of ripe corn.
     
    When evening quickens faintly in the street,
Wakening the appetites of life in some
And to others bringing the Boston Evening
Transcript,
I mount the steps and ring the bell, turning
Wearily, as one would turn to nod good-bye to
La Rochefoucauld, 1
If the street were time and he at the end of the
street,
And I say, ‘Cousin Harriet, here is the Boston
Evening Transcript.’

Aunt Helen
    Miss Helen Slingsby was my maiden aunt,
And lived in a small house near a fashionable
square
Cared for by servants to the number of four.
Now when she died there was silence in heaven
And silence at her end of the street.
The shutters were drawn and the undertaker wiped
his feet—
He was aware that this sort of thing had occurred
before.
The dogs were handsomely provided for,
But shortly afterwards the parrot died too.
The Dresden clock continued ticking on the
mantelpiece,
And the footman sat upon the dining-table
Holding the second housemaid on his knees—
Who had always been so careful while her mistress
lived.

Cousin Nancy
    Miss Nancy Ellicott
Strode across the hills and broke them,
Rode across the hills and broke them—
The barren New England hills—
Riding to hounds
Over the cow-pasture.
     
    Miss Nancy Ellicott smoked
And danced all the modern dances;
And her aunts were not quite sure how they felt
about it,
But they knew that it was modern.
     
    Upon the glazen shelves kept watch
Matthew and Waldo, 1 guardians of the faith,
The army of unalterable law.

Mr. Apollinax
    Ω τnς καivóτητoς ‘Hρκλεiζ, τς παραδoξoλoγíας. εvµnχανoς aνθρωπoς.
    LUCIAN. 1
     
    When Mr. Apollinax 2 visited the United States
His laughter tinkled among the teacups.
I thought of Fragilion, that shy figure among the
birch-trees,
And of Priapus 3 in the shrubbery
Gaping at the lady in the swing.
In the palace of Mrs. Phlaccus, at Professor
Channing-Cheetah’s
He laughed like an irresponsible foetus.
His laughter was submarine and profound
Like the old man of the sea’s
Hidden under coral islands
Where worried bodies of drowned men drift down
in the green silence,
Dropping from fingers of surf.
I looked for the head of Mr. Apollinax rolling
under a chair.
Or grinning over a screen
With seaweed in its hair.
I heard the beat of centaur’s hoofs over the hard
turf
As his dry and passionate talk devoured the
afternoon.
‘He is a charming man’—‘But after all what did he
mean?’—
‘His pointed ears.... He must be unbalanced.’—
‘There was something he said that I might have
challenged.’
Of dowager Mrs. Phlaccus, and Professor and
Mrs. Cheetah
I remember a slice of lemon, and a bitten
macaroon.

Hysteria
    As she laughed I was aware of becoming involved in her laughter and being part of it, until her teeth were only accidental stars with a talent for squad-drill. I was drawn in by short gasps, inhaled at each momentary recovery, lost finally in the dark caverns of her throat, bruised by the ripple of unseen muscles. An elderly waiter with trembling hands was hurriedly spreading a pink and white checked cloth over the rusty green iron table, saying: ‘If the lady and gentleman wish to take their tea in the garden, if the lady and gentleman wish to take their tea in the garden ...’ I decided that if the shaking of her breasts could be stopped, some of the fragments of the afternoon might be collected, and I concentrated my attention with careful subtlety to this end.

Conversation Galante
    I observe: ‘Our sentimental friend the moon!
Or possibly (fantastic, I confess)
It may be Prester John’s 1 balloon
Or an old battered