|
| LET us go then, you and I, | |
| When the evening is spread out against the sky | |
| Like a patient etherised upon a table; | |
| Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, | |
| The muttering retreats | 5 |
| 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 … | 10 |
| 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, | 15 |
| 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, | 20 |
| 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; | 25 |
| 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; | 30 |
| 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 | 35 |
| 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— | 40 |
| [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 | 45 |
| 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, | 50 |
| 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— | 55 |
| 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? | 60 |
| 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!] | |
| It is perfume from a dress | 65 |
| 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 | 70 |
| 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! | 75 |
| 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? | 80 |
| 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, | 85 |
| 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, | 90 |
| 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”— | 95 |
| 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, | 100 |
| 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: | 105 |
| 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.”
. . . . . | 110 |
| 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, | 115 |
| 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 … | 120 |
| 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. | 125 |
|
| 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 | 130 |
| Till human voices wake us, and we drown. |
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