| Author | Message | ||
| Max |
I want to share with all a favorite poem of mine just to show that I've been here and read all of your posts: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock 1917 by Thomas Stearns Eliot S' io credessi che mia risposta fosse a persona che mai tornasse al mondo, questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse. Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo non torno vivo alcum, s' i' odo il vero, senza tema d'infamia ti respondo. İİLet 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. İİIn the room the women come and go Talking of Michelangelo. İİThe 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. İİAnd 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. İİIn the room the women come and go Talking of Michelangelo. İİAnd 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. İİFor I have known them 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. İİSo how should I presume? İİAnd 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? İİAnd how should I presume? İİAnd 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. İİAnd should I then presume? İİAnd how should I begin? ..... İİShall 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. ..... İİAnd 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) İİİİİbrought 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. İİAnd 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 toward 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, İİShould say: "That is not what I meant at all; İİThat is not it, at all." İİAnd 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 İİİİİthe 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: İİ"That is not it at all, İİThat is not what I meant, at all." ..... İİNo! 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. İİI grow old... I grow old... I shall wear the bottoms of my trowsers rolled. İİShall 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 seagirls wreathed with seaweed red and brown Till human voices wake us, and we drown. *********************** It was written before he found Christ. Blessings to all and good night, Max of the Cross | ||
| George |
Max, I have learned over the years that it does no good to beat my head against the wall, all I do is loose my hair and the wall does not care. To the challenges of old I now repeat, I will leave them unfulfilled, and then retreat. George | ||
| Cindy |
Morning Max, Thanks for posting that! I read that a long time ago; a very interesting poem... I remember this part of another one of his poems, (if I have it right), that goes: "We shall not cease from exploration. And the end of all our exploring... Will be to arrive where we started; And know the place for the first time." Can you tell us more about how and when T.S. Elliot accepted Christ? Grace always, Cindy | ||
| Max |
Thanks, George, I got my first laugh of the day out of your post. that was clever. God bless, | ||
| Cindy |
I'm impressed, George, with your philosophy! Not beating your head against the wall cause it (the wall) doesn't care, and all you do is lose your hair! :-)) You also wrote: "To the challenges of old I now repeat, I will leave them unfulfilled, and then retreat." So poetic; did you originate those combination of words? Grace always, Cindy | ||
| Max |
Morning, Cindy! You're such a refreshing person! Still drinking that awful Folgers? How about Starbucks (in supermarkets now) or Seattle's Best? Here are three chunks of T.S. Eliot's biography from Columbia Encyclopedia: Eliotís early poetical worksóPrufrock and Other Observations (1917), Poems (1920), and The Waste Land (1922)óexpress the anguish and barrenness of modern life and the isolation of the individual, particularly as reflected in the failure of love. In his later poetry, notably Ash Wednesday (1930) and the Four Quartets (1935ñ42), Eliot turned from spiritual desolation to hope for human salvation. He accepted religious faith as a solution to the human dilemma and espoused Anglo-Catholicism in 1927. His later criticism attempts to support Christian culture against what he saw as the empty and fragmented values of secularism. Have a sparkling day, Cindy! | ||
| Max |
"Little Gidding" excerpt from FOUR QUARTETS by T.S. Eliot We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time. Through the unknown, remembered gate When the last of earth left to discover Is that which was the beginning; At the source of the longest river The voice of the hidden waterfall And the children in the apple tree Not known, because not looked for But heard, half-heard, in the stillness Between two waves of the sea. Quick now, here, now, always-- A condition of complete simplicity (Costing not less than everything) And aqll shall be well and All manner of thing shall be well When the tongues of flame are in-folded Into the crowned know of fire And the fire and the rose are one. 1942 | ||
| Cindy |
Max...thanks for info on T.S. Eliot. And I think you're right about Folgers compared to Starbucks or Seattles' Best! In fact, after Richard gets back from his morning 9:30 "AA" meeting (his alternative to Sabbath School!).... :-)) ... we're going to head downtown on the lightrail--I think it is even called the "MAX"!--to browse, shop, eat, and get some of that Starbucks! Grace always, Cindy | ||
| Max |
HAVING HEARD ABOUT THE SPARROWS, NOW HEAR ABOUT US Luke 12:5 But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him. 6 Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God? 7 But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore: ye are of more value than many sparrows. | ||
| George |
Hi Cindy, For what they are worth, yes. George | ||
| Maryann |
What's wrong with plain old Green Tea? And it is even better for you than coffee'-) | ||
| Allenette |
Creeping out of the woodwork: the above long winded poem, abbreviated, says: How Come I Cant Get Laid?? Ooops gone again.........nyuk nyuk nyuk Best wishes Max ggg | ||
| Max |
Allenette, You think T.S. Eliot had a problem in that area? You think plenty of attractive, much younger, women of London trying to seduce one of the most famous writers of the times WASN'T one of his problems? How much about this man do you really know? | ||
| Max |
TODAY'S TRIVIA QUESTION: Q. How old was T.S. Eliot when he wrote "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"? A. Twenty-nine years of age. | ||
| Max |
By now some of you have figured out how old Eliot was when he wrote "The Four Quartets," which includes the famous lines: We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time. But in case not, he was fifty-four. | ||
| Max |
Cindy, Tell us how your and Richard's day in Seattle went. Did you visit the fish market and watch the dudes sling salmon? Did Richard take your pic sitting on the bronze pig? Did you walk in any of those art galleries? Did you cave and buy giant jucy sweet blackberries? Or hot pepper jelly? And did you inhale the mist of Starbucks inside while the Pacific Ocean mist swirled outside? How I miss Emerald City! Dorothy, Toto, Tinman, Cowardly Lion, please come back! All is forgiven! | ||
| Max |
Another trivia question: A play called "Cats" which recently closed on Broadway in New York after the longest run (years) of any play in the history of the Big Apple was based on the work of a playwright who was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1888. For the grand trivia prize, who was that writer? Answer: T.S. Eliot | ||
| Max |
Q. Did T.S. Eliot win a Nobel Prize in literature? A. Yes. | ||
| Denisegilmore |
Hello Max, What language is before that first poem and what does it say? Always nice to know what is being said. God Bless, Denise | ||
| Max |
Hi Denise, It's a quote from Dante's "Inferno" or "Hell": "If I thought that my reply would be to one who would ever return to the world, this flame would stay without further movement; but since none has ever returned alive from this depth, if what I hear is true, I answer you without fear of infamy." Here's an explanatory note note to this quote given by the editors of the Norton Anthology of English Literature: "Guido da Montefeltro, shut up in his flame (the punishment given to false counselors), tells the shame of his evil life to Dante because he believes Dante will never return to earth to report it." And while I'm at it, I might as well give you these editors' introduction to the poem as well: "A drmatic monologue in which the speaker builds up a mood of social futility andinadequacy through the thoughts and images which haunt his consciousnes and by means of the symbolic landscape in which he moves. The title implies an ironic contrast between the romantic suggesetions of 'love song' and the dully prosaic name, 'J. Alfred Prufrock.' The quotation from Dante's "Inferno" which stands at the head of the poem adds to this contrast a note of profound hopeless- ness. Prufrock himself, middle-aged and unhappy, is not really at home in the society in which he is condemned to live; he is aware of the futility of such visits as he is paying, of his own awkwardness and malajustment, and his self-conscious response to the demands made on him. He is haunted not only by a knowledge of the pettiness and triviality of this world, but also by a sense of his own sexual inadequacy and a feeling that once, somewhere, he had had a vision of a life more real and more beautiful, but that he has long since strayed from that reality to the artificial and barren existence in which he now suffocates. The lost dream world was paradoxically the only real world, man's true element, and out of it he drowns." Personally I don't agree with everything these editors say -- but that's what THEY say about Eliot's work, published when he was only 29 years old. |
