/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.11100566]

YOU! stop whatever you were about to do and spend the next 6 minutes and 22 seconds reading one of the most magnificent poems ever written.

The Love Song Of J. Alfred Prufrock.
--T. S. Eliot

>Here is the beautiful poem
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/44212/the-love-song-of-j-alfred-prufrock

>And here..., here is Sir Anthony Hopkins narrating the poem for you (it's only 6:22. No excuses!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLNsPhKlucY

[Anonymous No.11100571]

gay

[Anonymous No.11100573]

Drop Eliot and read Crane instead

[Anonymous No.11100578]

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?

[Anonymous No.11100585]

>>11100566
my friend, i normally would have read it, but i'm so fucking angry that nobody wanted to read the book i posted, that i do not see why i would read anybody else's shit.

[Anonymous No.11100586]

>>11100578
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.

[Anonymous No.11100593]

I actually read this poem this morning, as I often do. I find it really fantastic and thought provoking. However, as much as I admire Hopkins, especially after westworld, I find his reading of the poem too fast, too rushed.

[Anonymous No.11100637]

>>11100593
The best recording is Eliot reading it himself

[Anonymous No.11100643]

>>11100573
>instead
Disgusting

[Anonymous No.11100754]

Un Soir à Lima

(translated from Portuguese)

The voice on the radio returns,
Announcing in an exaggerated drawl:
"And now
Un Soir à Lima . . ."

I stop smiling . . .
My heart stops beating . . .

And form the unconscious receiver
That sweet and accursed melody
Breaks forth . . .
My soul loses itself
In a suddenly resurrected memory . . .

The wooded slope shimmered
Under the great African moon.
The living room in our house was large, and everything
Between it and the sea was lit up
By the dark brilliance of that gigantic moon . . .
But only I stood by the window.
My mother was at the piano
And played . . .
That very same
Un Soir à Lima.

My God! How distant and irrevocably lost all that is!
What has become of her noble bearing?
Of her dependably soothing voice?
Of her full and affectionate smile?
What there is today
To remind me of all that
Is this melody, exactly the same melody,
Still playing on the radio,
None other than Un Soir à Lima.

Her graying hair was so lovely
In the light,
And I never thought she would die
And leave me at the mercy of who I am!

She died, but I'll always be her little boy,
Because no one, for his mother, is ever a man!

* * *

[Anonymous No.11100765]

And even through tears my memory
Still preserves
The perfect medallion image
Of that yet more perfect profile.
My forever childish heart weeps
When I remember you, mother, so Roman and already graying.
I see your fingers at the keyboard, and the moonlight
Outside shines eternally in me.
In my heart you play, without ceasing,
Un Soir à Lima
. . .

"Did the little ones go right to sleep?"
"Yes, right to sleep."
"This girl here is almost asleep."
And, smiling as you spoke, you continued
Playing,
Attentively playing,
Un Soir à Lima.

All I was when I wasn't anyone,
All I loved and only now know
I loved, now that I have no remotely
Real path, now that I have only
Nostalgia for what was—
It all lives in me
Through lights and music
And my heart's undying vision
Of that eternal hour
In which you turned
The unreal page of music
And I heard and saw you
Continue the eternal melody
That lives today
In the eternal depths of my nostalgia
For the time when you, mother, played
Un Soir à Lima.

And the indifferent receiver
Transmits from the unconscious station
Un Soir à Lima.

I didn't know then that I was happy.
I know it now, because I no longer am.

"This girl here is also sleeping . . ."
"No she isn't."
We all smiled,
And I,
Far from the hard and lonely
Moon that shone outside,
Absentmindedly kept listening
To what made me dream without realizing it,
To what nowadays makes me feel sorry for myself,
That gentle song without voice, just the sounds
Of the keys my mother played:
Un Soir à Lima.

* * *

[Anonymous No.11100789]

If only I could have that entire scene
Right here, complete and distilled,
Tucked away in a drawer,
Tucked in one of my pockets!
If only I could yank
From space, from time, from life,
That living room, that hour,
The whole family and that peace and that music,
Isolating it all
In some part of my soul
Where I could have it
Forever
Alive, warm,
As real as it is back there
Even now,
When, mother, dear mother, you played
Un Soir à Lima.

Mother, mother, I was your boy
Whom you taught to be
So well-behaved,
And today I'm a rag
Rolled into a ball by Destiny and tossed
Into a corner.

There I pathetically lie,
But the memory of what I heard and what I knew
Of affection, of home and of family
Rises to my heart in a swirl,
And remembering it I heard, today, my God, all alone
Un Soir à Lima.

Where is that hour, that home, that love
From when, mother, dear mother, you played
Un Soir à Lima?

And my sister,
Tiny and snuggled in a stuffed chair,
Didn't know
If she was sleeping or not . . .

* * *

I've been so many vile things!
I've been so unfaithful to who I am!
How often my parched,
Subtle reasoner's spirit
Has abundantly erred!
How often even my emotion
Has unfeelingly deceived me!

Since I have no home.
May I at least dwell
In this vision
Of the home I had then.
May I at least listen, listen, listen,
There by the window
Of never again ceasing to feel,
In that living room, our warm living room
In capacious Africa where the moon
Outside shines vast and indifferent,
Neither good nor bad,
And where, mother,
In my heart, mother,
You visibly play,
You eternally play
Un Soir à Lima.
. . .

* * *

[Anonymous No.11100790]

>>11100566
I have it memorized, thanks.

[Anonymous No.11100791]

>>11100643
True

[Anonymous No.11100824]

I read it in 5 minutes

[Anonymous No.11100838]

My stepfather
(What a man! what heart and soul!)
Reclined his calm and robust
Athlete's body
In the largest chair
And listened, smoking and musing,
His blue eyes without any color,,
And my sister, then a child,
Curled up in her chair,
Heard while sleeping
And smiling
That someone was playing
Perhaps a dance . . .

And I, standing before the window,
Saw all the moonlight of all Africa flooding
The landscape and my dream.

Where did all of that go?
Un Soir à Lima . . .
Shatter, heart!
. . .

* * *

. . .
But I'm dizzy
I don't know if I'm seeing or if I'm sleeping,
If I am who I was,
If I'm remembering or if I'm forgetting.
Something hazily flows
Between who I am and what I was,
And it's like a river, or a breeze, or a dreaming,
Something unexpected
That suddenly stops,
And from the depths where it seemed it would end
There emerges, more and more clearly,
In a nimbus of softness and nostalgia
Where my heart still lingers
A piano, a woman's figure, a longing . . .
I sleep in the lap of that melody,
Listening to my mother play,
Listening, now with the salt of tears on my tongue,
to Un Soir à Lima.

* * *

[Anonymous No.11100854]

>>11100790
you miss at least 11 books to achieve his basic oeuvre anon. lurk moar

[Anonymous No.11100867]

>>11100854
Don't be absurd. I have everything Eliot ever wrote, in any genre.

[Anonymous No.11100873]

The veil of tears does not blind me.
Crying, I see
What that music gives me—
The mother I had, that home from long ago,
The child I was,
The horror of time because it flows,
The horror of life because it only kills.
I see, and asleep,
And in my torpor, forgetting myself,
I see my mother playing the piano.
And those small white hands,
Whose caresses will never again comfort me,
Play carefully and calmly
Un Soir à Lima.

Ah, I see everything clearly!
I'm back there once more.
I turn away my eyes that had been gazing
At the uncommon moon outside.

But wait, my mind rambles, and the music is over . . .
I ramble as I've always rambled,
With no inner certainty about who I am,
Nor any real faith or firm rule.
I ramble, I create my own eternities
With the opium of memory and abandon.
I enthrone fantastical queens
But have no throne for them to sit on.

I dream because I wallow
In the unreal river of that recollected music.
My soul is a ragged child
Sleeping in a dusky corner.
All I have of my own
In true, waking reality
Are the tatters of my abandoned soul
And my head that's dreaming next to the wall.

Oh isn't there, mother, dear mother,
Some God to save all this from futility,
Some other world in which this lives on?
I continue to ramble: everything is illusion.
Un Soir à Lima . . .

Shatter, heart . . .

[Anonymous No.11101817]

His best poem? It's between this and The Waste Land for me. You can tell he was larping when he wrote Ash Wednesday and Four Quartets, though the latter is still pretty good. Still, for how great he was at his best he really didn't produce much good poetry.