POEM of T.S.Eliot

T.S. Eliot (1888–1965).  Prufrock and Other Observations.  1920.
 
1. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
 
        S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
Non 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 sky
 
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
 
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
 
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
 
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
 
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
 
Of insidious intent
 
To 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 go
 
Talking of Michelangelo.
 
 
The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
 
Licked 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 time
 
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
 
Rubbing its back upon the window panes;
There will be time, there will be time
 
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
 
There will be time to murder and create,
 
And time for all the works and days of hands
 
That 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 go
Talking of Michelangelo.
 
 
And indeed there will be time
 
To 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 dare
Disturb the universe?
 
In a minute there is time
 
For 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 fall
 
Beneath 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 begin
 
To 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 dress
That 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 streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
 
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?…
 
 
I should have been a pair of ragged claws
 
Scuttling 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 ball
 
To 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 the floor—
 
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 while
 
If 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 do
 
To 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 waves
 
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
 
When the wind blows the water white and black.
 
 
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
 
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

Comentarios

Publicar un comentario

Entradas más populares de este blog

ESTOY HECHA DE RETAZOS-POEMA de CARO CAROLINA

Imagen
      Estelas en la mar 7   · Estoy hecha de retazo S     Estoy hecha de retazos, pedacitos coloridos de cada vida que pasa por la mía y que voy cosiendo en el alma.   No siempre son bonitos, ni siempre felices, pero me agregan y me hacen ser quien soy.   En cada encuentro, en cada contacto, voy quedando mayor. En cada retazo una vida, una lección, un cariño, una nostalgia... Que me hacen más persona, más humana, más completa.   Y pienso que es así como la vida se hace: de pedazos de otras gentes que se van convirtiendo en parte de uno también. Y la mejor parte es que nunca estaremos listos, finalizados. Siempre habrá un retazo para añadir al alma.   Por lo tanto, gracias a cada uno de ustedes, que forman parte de mi vida y que me permiten engrandecer mi historia con los retazos dejados en mí.    Que yo también pueda dejar pedacitos de mí por los caminos y que puedan ser parte de sus historias.   Y que así, de retazo en...
Leer más

USA The good job of a floor maid at the Tewksbury Institute

Imagen
  One of the better stories I have read in a long time. Dr. Frank Mayfield was touring Tewksbury Institute when, on his way out, he accidentally collided with an elderly floor maid. To cover the awkward moment Dr. May field started asking questions. "How long have you worked here?" "I've worked here almost since the place opened," the maid replied. "What can you tell me about the history of this place?" he asked. "I don't think I can tell you anything, but I could show you something." With that, she took his hand and led him down to the basement under the oldest section of the building. She pointed to one of what looked like small prison cells, their iron bars rusted with age, and said, "That's the cage where they used to keep Annie Sullivan." "Who's Annie?" the doctor asked. Annie was a young girl who was brought in here because she was incorrigible—nobody could do anything with her. She'd bite and scream ...
Leer más

CHILE: Los HINRICHSEN de TOME-una aproximación a nuestra historia familiar

Imagen
http://www.archivohistoricoconcepcion.cl/biblioteca-digital/autores/rolando-saavedra/ He leido con no pocas emociones este magnífico recuento de la historia de la querida familia de la cual heredé dos hijxs maravillosos, Yanina Andrea Hinrichsen Zabaleta, nacida en Concepción, y Tomás Alejo Hinrichsen Zabaleta, nacido durante nuestro exilio con Ricardo Alberto Hinrichsen Ramírez en Glasgow, Escocia.  Como casi todo ya está dicho por el autor, no me faltaría tal vez más que agregar algunas fotos de las decenas que atesoro.  Mientras decido cual/es, saludo al autor, Don Rolando, y le reitero mi agradecimiento por su esmerado y logrado esfuerzo de investigación para llevar a su conclusión a este valioso nuevo libro suyo que, con su acostumbrada g enerosidad, nos ha compartido. Foto de la fiesta de nuestro matrimonio el 17 de julio de 1969, en la casa de mi marido, de izquierda a derecha, Tomás Benjamín Hinrichsen Ramírez, Cristián, Juan Carlos, Sra. María Victoria Ramírez de Hin...
Leer más