作曲 : T.S.Eliot
 The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

 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 towards 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.

 The Hollow Men

 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 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.

 Ash Wednesday

 I

 Because I do not hope to turn again
 Because I do not hope
 Because I do not hope to turn
 Desiring this man's gift and that man's scope
 I no longer strive to strive towards such things
 (Why should the agèd eagle stretch its wings?)
 Why should I mourn
 The vanished power of the usual reign?

 Because I do not hope to know
 The infirm glory of the positive hour
 Because I do not think
 Because I know I shall not know
 The one veritable transitory power
 Because I cannot drink
 There, where trees flower, and springs flow, for there is nothing again

 Because I know that time is always time
 And place is always and only place
 And what is actual is actual only for one time
 And only for one place
 I rejoice that things are as they are and
 I renounce the blessèd face
 And renounce the voice
 Because I cannot hope to turn again
 Consequently I rejoice, having to construct something
 Upon which to rejoice

 And pray to God to have mercy upon us
 And pray that I may forget
 These matters that with myself I too much discuss
 Too much explain
 Because I do not hope to turn again
 Let these words answer
 For what is done, not to be done again
 May the judgement not be too heavy upon us

 Because these wings are no longer wings to fly
 But merely vans to beat the air
 The air which is now thoroughly small and dry
 Smaller and dryer than the will
 Teach us to care and not to care Teach us to sit still.

 Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death
 Pray for us now and at the hour of our death.
 II
 Lady, three white leopards sat under a juniper-tree
 In the cool of the day, having fed to sateity
 On my legs my heart my liver and that which had been contained
 In the hollow round of my skull. And God said
 Shall these bones live? shall these
 Bones live? And that which had been contained
 In the bones (which were already dry) said chirping:
 Because of the goodness of this Lady
 And because of her loveliness, and because
 She honours the Virgin in meditation,
 We shine with brightness. And I who am here dissembled
 Proffer my deeds to oblivion, and my love
 To the posterity of the desert and the fruit of the gourd.
 It is this which recovers
 My guts the strings of my eyes and the indigestible portions
 Which the leopards reject. The Lady is withdrawn
 In a white gown, to contemplation, in a white gown.
 Let the whiteness of bones atone to forgetfulness.
 There is no life in them. As I am forgotten
 And would be forgotten, so I would forget
 Thus devoted, concentrated in purpose. And God said
 Prophesy to the wind, to the wind only for only
 The wind will listen. And the bones sang chirping
 With the burden of the grasshopper, saying

 Lady of silences
 Calm and distressed
 Torn and most whole
 Rose of memory
 Rose of forgetfulness
 Exhausted and life-giving
 Worried reposeful
 The single Rose
 Is now the Garden
 Where all loves end
 Terminate torment
 Of love unsatisfied
 The greater torment
 Of love satisfied
 End of the endless
 Journey to no end
 Conclusion of all that
 Is inconclusible
 Speech without word and
 Word of no speech
 Grace to the Mother
 For the Garden
 Where all love ends.

 Under a juniper-tree the bones sang, scattered and shining
 We are glad to be scattered, we did little good to each other,
 Under a tree in the cool of day, with the blessing of sand,
 Forgetting themselves and each other, united
 In the quiet of the desert. This is the land which ye
 Shall divide by lot. And neither division nor unity
 Matters. This is the land. We have our inheritance.

 III
 At the first turning of the second stair
 I turned and saw below
 The same shape twisted on the banister
 Under the vapour in the fetid air
 Struggling with the devil of the stairs who wears
 The deceitul face of hope and of despair.

 At the second turning of the second stair
 I left them twisting, turning below;
 There were no more faces and the stair was dark,
 Damp, jaggèd, like an old man's mouth drivelling, beyond repair,
 Or the toothed gullet of an agèd shark.

 At the first turning of the third stair
 Was a slotted window bellied like the figs's fruit
 And beyond the hawthorn blossom and a pasture scene
 The broadbacked figure drest in blue and green
 Enchanted the maytime with an antique flute.
 Blown hair is sweet, brown hair over the mouth blown,
 Lilac and brown hair;
 Distraction, music of the flute, stops and steps of the mind over the third stair,
 Fading, fading; strength beyond hope and despair
 Climbing the third stair.

 Lord, I am not worthy
 Lord, I am not worthy

 but speak the word only.
 IV
 Who walked between the violet and the violet
 Whe walked between
 The various ranks of varied green
 Going in white and blue, in Mary's colour,
 Talking of trivial things
 In ignorance and knowledge of eternal dolour
 Who moved among the others as they walked,
 Who then made strong the fountains and made fresh the springs

 Made cool the dry rock and made firm the sand
 In blue of larkspur, blue of Mary's colour,
 Sovegna vos

 Here are the years that walk between, bearing
 Away the fiddles and the flutes, restoring
 One who moves in the time between sleep and waking, wearing

 White light folded, sheathing about her, folded.
 The new years walk, restoring
 Through a bright cloud of tears, the years, restoring
 With a new verse the ancient rhyme. Redeem
 The time. Redeem
 The unread vision in the higher dream
 While jewelled unicorns draw by the gilded hearse.

 The silent sister veiled in white and blue
 Between the yews, behind the garden god,
 Whose flute is breathless, bent her head and signed but spoke no word

 But the fountain sprang up and the bird sang down
 Redeem the time, redeem the dream
 The token of the word unheard, unspoken

 Till the wind shake a thousand whispers from the yew

 And after this our exile

 V
 If the lost word is lost, if the spent word is spent
 If the unheard, unspoken
 Word is unspoken, unheard;
 Still is the unspoken word, the Word unheard,
 The Word without a word, the Word within
 The world and for the world;
 And the light shone in darkness and
 Against the Word the unstilled world still whirled
 About the centre of the silent Word.

 O my people, what have I done unto thee.

 Where shall the word be found, where will the word
 Resound? Not here, there is not enough silence
 Not on the sea or on the islands, not
 On the mainland, in the desert or the rain land,
 For those who walk in darkness
 Both in the day time and in the night time
 The right time and the right place are not here
 No place of grace for those who avoid the face
 No time to rejoice for those who walk among noise and deny the voice

 Will the veiled sister pray for
 Those who walk in darkness, who chose thee and oppose thee,
 Those who are torn on the horn between season and season, time and time, between
 Hour and hour, word and word, power and power, those who wait
 In darkness? Will the veiled sister pray
 For children at the gate
 Who will not go away and cannot pray:
 Pray for those who chose and oppose

 O my people, what have I done unto thee.

 Will the veiled sister between the slender
 Yew trees pray for those who offend her
 And are terrified and cannot surrender
 And affirm before the world and deny between the rocks
 In the last desert before the last blue rocks
 The desert in the garden the garden in the desert
 Of drouth, spitting from the mouth the withered apple-seed.

 O my people.
 VI
 Although I do not hope to turn again
 Although I do not hope
 Although I do not hope to turn

 Wavering between the profit and the loss
 In this brief transit where the dreams cross
 The dreamcrossed twilight between birth and dying
 (Bless me father) though I do not wish to wish these things
 From the wide window towards the granite shore
 The white sails still fly seaward, seaward flying
 Unbroken wings

 And the lost heart stiffens and rejoices
 In the lost lilac and the lost sea voices
 And the weak spirit quickens to rebel
 For the bent golden-rod and the lost sea smell
 Quickens to recover
 The cry of quail and the whirling plover
 And the blind eye creates
 The empty forms between the ivory gates
 And smell renews the salt savour of the sandy earth

 This is the time of tension between dying and birth
 The place of solitude where three dreams cross
 Between blue rocks
 But when the voices shaken from the yew-tree drift away
 Let the other yew be shaken and reply.

 Blessèd sister, holy mother, spirit of the fountain, spirit of the garden,
 Suffer us not to mock ourselves with falsehood
 Teach us to care and not to care
 Teach us to sit still
 Even among these rocks,
 Our peace in His will
 And even among these rocks
 Sister, mother
 And spirit of the river, spirit of the sea,
 Suffer me not to be separated

 And let my cry come unto Thee.