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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
SWEENEY AMONG THE NIGHTINGALES, by THOMAS STEARNS ELIOT Poem Explanation Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: We are the hollow men Last Line: This is the way the world ends / not with a bang but a whimper Alternate Author Name(s): Eliot, T. S. Subject(s): Constellations; Decay; Mythology; Rot; Decadence | |||
Apeneck Sweeney spread his knees Mistah Kurtz-he dead Letting his arms hang down to laugh, A penny for the Old Guy The zebra stripes along his jaw I Swelling to maculate giraffe. We are the hollow men We are the stuffed men The circles of the stormy moon Leaning together Slide westward toward the River Plate, Headpiece filled with straw. Alas! Death and the Raven drift above Our dried voices, when And Sweeney guards the hornéd gate. We whisper together Are quiet and meaningless Gloomy Orion and the Dog As wind in dry grass Are veiled; and hushed the shrunken seas; Or rats' feet over broken glass The person in the Spanish cape In our dry cellar Tries to sit on Sweeney's knees Shape without form, shade without colour, Slips and pulls the table cloth Paralysed force, gesture without motion; Overturns a coffee-cup, Reorganized upon the floor Those who have crossed She yawns and draws a stocking up; With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom Remember us-if at all-not as lost The silent man in mocha brown Violent souls, but only Sprawls at the window-sill and gapes; As the hollow men The waiter brings in oranges The stuffed men. Banana figs and hothouse grapes; II Eyes I dare not meet in dreams The silent vertebrate in brown In death's dream kingdom Contracts and concentrates, withdraws; These do not appear: Rachel nee Rabinovitch There, the eyes are Tears at the grapes with murderous paws; Sunlight on a broken column There, is a tree swinging She and the lady in the cape And voices are Are suspect, thought to be in league; In the wind's singing Therefore the man with heavy eyes More distant and more solemn Declines the gambit, shows fatigue, Than a fading star. Leaves the room and reappears Let me be no nearer Outside the window, leaning in, In death's dream kingdom Branches of wisteria Let me also wear Circumscribe a golden grin; Such deliberate disguises Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves The host with someone indistinct In a field Converses at the door apart, Behaving as the wind behaves The nightingales are singing near No nearer- The Convent of the Sacred Heart, Not that final meeting And sang within the bloody wood In the twilight kingdom When Agamemnon cried aloud, III And let their liquid siftings fall This is the dead land To stain the stiff dishonoured shroud. This is cactus land Here the stone images Are raised, here they receive The supplication of a dead man's hand Under the twinkle of a fading star. Is it like this In death's other kingdom Waking alone At the hour when we are Trembling with tenderness Lips that would kiss Form prayers to broken stone. IV The eyes are not here There are no eyes here In this valley of dying stars In this hollow valley This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms In this last of meeting places We grope together And avoid speech Gathered on this beach of the tumid river Sightless, unless The eyes reappear As the perpetual star Multifoliate rose Of death's twilight kingdom The hope only Of empty men. V Here we go round the prickly pear Prickly pear prickly pear Here we go round the prickly pear At five o'clock in the morning. Between the idea And the reality Between the motion And the act Falls the Shadow For Thine is the Kingdom Between the conception And the creation Between the emotion And the response Falls the Shadow Life is very long Between the desire And the spasm Between the potency And the existence Between the essence And the descent Falls the Shadow For Thine is the Kingdom For Thine is Life is For Thine is the This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...PUT BACK THE DARK by MARVIN BELL PUTREFACTION by CHARLES BUKOWSKI WHAT COULD HAPPEN by DORIANNE LAUX SURFACE AND STRUCTURE: BONAVENTURE HOTEL, LOS ANGELES by KAREN SWENSON SEVEN ODES TO SEVEN NATURAL PROCESSES: ODE TO ROT by JOHN UPDIKE COUSIN NANCY by THOMAS STEARNS ELIOT |
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