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Some fresh insights into The Waste Land vis-a-vis World War 1. Critical Insights: T.S. Eliot Voices and Language in T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land By Allan Johnson http://salempress.com/store/samples/critical_insights/eliot_voices.htm CR ________________________________ From: Chokh Raj <[log in to unmask]> To: [log in to unmask] Sent: Wednesday, November 21, 2012 8:55 AM Subject: Re: trench 'The Waste Land' vis-a-vis WW1 "'The horror! the horror!'" (from the epigraph to the original version of The Waste Land) What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man, 20 You cannot say, or guess, for you know only A heap of broken images, where the sun beats, And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief, And the dry stone no sound of water. Only There is shadow under this red rock, 25 (Come in under the shadow of this red rock), And I will show you something different from either Your shadow at morning striding behind you Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you; I will show you fear in a handful of dust. Unreal City, 60 Under the brown fog of a winter dawn, A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many, I had not thought death had undone so many. Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled, And each man fixed his eyes before his feet. 65 Flowed up the hill and down King William Street, To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine. There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying “Stetson! You who were with me in the ships at Mylae! 70 That corpse you planted last year in your garden, Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year? Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed? Oh keep the Dog far hence, that’s friend to men, Or with his nails he’ll dig it up again! HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME Goonight Bill. Goonight Lou. Goonight May. Goonight. 170 Ta ta. Goonight. Goonight. Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night. The river’s tent is broken: the last fingers of leaf Clutch and sink into the wet bank. The wind Crosses the brown land, unheard. By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept… Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song, Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or long. But at my back in a cold blast I hear 185 The rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear. A rat crept softly through the vegetation Dragging its slimy belly on the bank While I was fishing in the dull canal On a winter evening round behind the gashouse. 190 Musing upon the king my brother’s wreck And on the king my father’s death before him. White bodies naked on the low damp ground And bones cast in a little low dry garret, Rattled by the rat’s foot only, year to year. Burning burning burning burning O Lord Thou pluckest me out O Lord Thou pluckest 310 burning What is that sound high in the air Murmur of maternal lamentation Who are those hooded hordes swarming Over endless plains, stumbling in cracked earth Ringed by the flat horizon only 370 What is the city over the mountains Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air Falling towers Jerusalem Athens Alexandria Vienna London 375 Unreal A woman drew her long black hair out tight And fiddled whisper music on those strings And bats with baby faces in the violet light Whistled, and beat their wings 380 And crawled head downward down a blackened wall And upside down in air were towers Tolling reminiscent bells, that kept the hours And voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells. In this decayed hole among the mountains 385 In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing Over the tumbled graves, about the chapel There is the empty chapel, only the wind’s home. http://www.bartleby.com/201/1.html CR