Modernist+poem+2-+Love+song+for+Alfred+J+Prufrock

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

 S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse

 A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,

 Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.

 Ma per ciò che giammai di questo fondo

 Non tornò vivo alcun, s'i' odo il vero,

 Senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.

 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

 Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels

 And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:

 Streets that follow like a tedious argument

 Of insidious intent

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> To lead you to an overwhelming question ...

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> Let us go and make our visit.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> In [|the room] the women come and go

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> Talking of Michelangelo.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the windowpanes,

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the windowpanes

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> And seeing that it was a soft October night,

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> And indeed there will be time

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> For the yellow smoke that slides along the street

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> There will be time, there will be time

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> There will be time to murder and create,

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> And time for all the works and days of hands

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> That lift and drop a question on your plate;

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> Time for you and time for me,

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> And time yet for a hundred indecisions,

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> And for a hundred visions and revisions,

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> Before the taking of a toast and tea.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> In the room the women come and go

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> Talking of Michelangelo.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> And indeed there will be time

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?"

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> Time to turn back and descend the stair,

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> With a bald spot in the middle of my hair--

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> (They will say: "How his hair is growing thin!")

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin--

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> (They will say: "But how his arms and legs are thin!")

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> Do I dare

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> Disturb the universe?

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> In a minute there is time

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> For I have known them all already, known them all--

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> I have measured out my [|life] with coffee spoons;

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> I know the voices dying with a dying fall

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> Beneath the music from a farther room.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> So how should I presume?

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> And I have known the eyes already, known them all--

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> Then how should I begin

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> And how should I presume?

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> And I have known the arms already, known them all--

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> Arms that are braceleted and white and bare

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> (But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!)

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> Is it perfume from a [|dress]

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> That makes me so digress?

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> And should I then presume?

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> And how should I begin?

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">. . . ..

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? . ..

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> I should have been a pair of ragged claws

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">. . . ..

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> Smoothed by long fingers,

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> Asleep. . . tired. . . or it malingers,

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> upon a platter,

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> I am no prophet--and here's no great matter;

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> And in short, I was afraid.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> And would it have been worth it, after all,

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> Would it have been worth while,

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> To have bitten off the matter with a smile,

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> To have squeezed the universe into a ball

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> To roll it towards some overwhelming question,

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> To say: "I am Lazarus, come from the dead,

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all"--

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> If one, settling a pillow by her head,

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> Should say: "That is not what I meant at all.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> That is not it, at all."

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> And would it have been worth it, after all,

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> Would it have been worth while,

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor--

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> And this, and so much more?--

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> It is impossible to say just what I mean!

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> Would it have been worth while

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> And turning toward the window, should say:

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> "That is not it at all,

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> That is not what I meant, at all."

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">. . . ..

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> No!I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> Am an attendant lord, one that will do

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> To swell a progress, start a scene or two,

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> Deferential, glad to be of use,

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> Politic, cautious, and meticulous;

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> At times, indeed, almost ridiculous--

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> Almost, at times, the Fool.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> I grow old. . . I grow old. ..

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> Shall I part my hair behind?Do I dare to eat a peach?

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> I do not think that they will sing to me.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> I have seen them riding seaward on the waves

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> Combing the white hair of the waves blown back

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> When the wind blows the water white and black.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> We have lingered in the chambers of the sea

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">T.S Elliot