"who is the third who always walks beside you?"

Since I have been talking much of novels and television and film of late, I decided I might add some poetry into the mix. One of my favorite poets (of which, of course, I have many), is T.S. Eliot. Besides being one of the main voices of the Jazz Age disillusionment, one of his poetry collections was turned into the musical Cats by Andrew Lloyd Webber. The man is a genius with words, and here I will share excerpts from a few of his lovely works- and links where you can read the rest.

"The Waste Land"

(lines 249-256)

She turns and looks a moment in the glass,

Hardly aware of her departed lover;

Her brain allows one half-formed thought to pass:

“Well now that’s done: and I’m glad it’s over.”

When lovely woman stoops to folly and

Paces about her room again, alone,

She smoothes her hair with automatic hand,

And puts a record on the gramophone.

"The Hollow Men"

(lines 18-27)

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.

"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

(lines 49-54)

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?


I encourage you to click the links, read the poems, and revel in T.S. Eliot's mastery of the written word.

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