Mistah Kurtz-he dead Apeneck Sweeney spread his knees A penny for the Old Guy Letting his arms hang down to laugh, I The zebra stripes along his jaw We are the hollow men Swelling to maculate giraffe. We are the stuffed men Leaning together The circles of the stormy moon Headpiece filled with straw. Alas! Slide westward toward the River Plate, Our dried voices, when Death and the Raven drift above We whisper together And Sweeney guards the hornéd gate. Are quiet and meaningless As wind in dry grass Gloomy Orion and the Dog Or rats' feet over broken glass Are veiled; and hushed the shrunken seas; In our dry cellar The person in the Spanish cape Tries to sit on Sweeney's knees Shape without form, shade without colour, Paralysed force, gesture without motion; Slips and pulls the table cloth Overturns a coffee-cup, Those who have crossed Reorganized upon the floor With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom She yawns and draws a stocking up; Remember us-if at all-not as lost Violent souls, but only The silent man in mocha brown As the hollow men Sprawls at the window-sill and gapes; The stuffed men. The waiter brings in oranges II Banana figs and hothouse grapes; Eyes I dare not meet in dreams In death's dream kingdom The silent vertebrate in brown These do not appear: Contracts and concentrates, withdraws; There, the eyes are Rachel @3nee@1 Rabinovitch Sunlight on a broken column Tears at the grapes with murderous paws; There, is a tree swinging And voices are She and the lady in the cape In the wind's singing Are suspect, thought to be in league; More distant and more solemn Therefore the man with heavy eyes Than a fading star. Declines the gambit, shows fatigue, Let me be no nearer Leaves the room and reappears In death's dream kingdom Outside the window, leaning in, Let me also wear Branches of wisteria Such deliberate disguises Circumscribe a golden grin; Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves In a field The host with someone indistinct Behaving as the wind behaves Converses at the door apart, No nearer- The nightingales are singing near The Convent of the Sacred Heart, Not that final meeting In the twilight kingdom And sang within the bloody wood III When Agamemnon cried aloud, This is the dead land And let their liquid siftings fall This is cactus land To stain the stiff dishonoured shroud. 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...TO AGE by WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR GERARDA by ELOISE ALBERTA VERONICA BIBB FRAGMENT OF THE ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF ADONIS by BION THE OLD COVE by HENRY HOWARD BROWNELL THE PINES by MARY HOPE CABANISS THEALMA AND CLEARCHUS by JOHN CHALKHILL CASTLES IN THE AIR by JEAN FRANCOIS COLLIN D'HARLEVILLE ODE ON READING RICHARDSON'S HISTORY OF SIR CHARLES GRANDISON by WILLIAM COWPER |