sábado, 24 de setembro de 2011

T. S. Eliot (1888-1965)

The Hollow Men
Excerpt



Mistah Kurtz -- he dead.
A penny for the Old Guy


I

We are the hollow men

We are the stuffed men

Leaning together

Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!

Our dried voices, when

We whisper together

Are quiet and meaningless

As wind in dry grass

Or rats' feet over broken glass

In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,

Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed

With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom

Remember us -- if at all -- not as lost

Violent souls, but only

As the hollow men

The stuffed men.

II

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death's dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are

Sunlight on a broken column

There, is a tree swinging

And voices are
In the wind's singing

More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer

In death's dream kingdom

Let me also wear

Such deliberate disguises

Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves

In a field

Behaving as the wind behaves

No nearer --

Not that final meeting

In the twilight kingdom

III

This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone imagesAre raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man's handUnder 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.

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