S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse

A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,

Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.

Ma percioche giammai di questo fondo

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

Senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.¹

1

Let us go then, you and I,

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When the evening is spread out against the sky

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Like a patient etherized upon a table;

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Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,

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The muttering retreats

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Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels

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And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:

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Streets that follow like a tedious argument

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Of insidious intent

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To lead you to an overwhelming question ...

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Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"

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Let us go and make our visit.

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In the room the women come and go

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Talking of Michelangelo.²

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The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window- panes,

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The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,

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Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,

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Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,

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Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,

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Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,

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And seeing that it was a soft October night,

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Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

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And indeed there will be time

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For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,

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Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;

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There will be time, there will be time

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To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;

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There will be time to murder and create,

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And time for all the works and days of hands

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That lift and drop a question on your plate;

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Time for you and time for me,

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And time yet for a hundred indecisions,

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And for a hundred visions and revisions,

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Before the taking of a toast and tea.

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In the room the women come and go

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Talking of Michelangelo.

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And indeed there will be time

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To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?"

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Time to turn back and descend the stair,

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With a bald spot in the middle of my hair --

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(They will say: 'How his hair is growing thin!")

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My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin

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My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin--

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(They will say: "But how his arms and legs are thin!")

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Do I dare

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Disturb the universe?

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In a minute there is time

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For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

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For I have known them all already, known them all--

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Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,

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I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;

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I know the voices dying with a dying fall

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Beneath the music from a farther room.

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So how should I presume?

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And I have known the eyes already, known them all--

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The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,

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And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,

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When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,

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Then how should I begin

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To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?

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And how should I presume?

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And I have known the arms already, known them all--

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Arms that are braceleted and white and bare

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(But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!)

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Is it perfume from a dress

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That makes me so digress?

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Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.

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And should I then presume?

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And how should I begin?

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Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets

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And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes

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Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? . . .

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I should have been a pair of ragged claws

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Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

      *       *       *       *

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And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!

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Smoothed by long fingers,

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Asleep . . . tired . . . or it malingers,

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Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.

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Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,

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Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?

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But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,

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Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,

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I am no prophet -- and here's no great matter;

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I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,

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And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,

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And in short, I was afraid.

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And would it have been worth it, after all,

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After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,

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Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,

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Would it have been worth while,

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To have bitten off the matter with a smile,

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To have squeezed the universe into a ball

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To roll it towards some overwhelming question,

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To say: "I am Lazarus, come from the dead,³

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Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all" --

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If one, settling a pillow by her head

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Should say: "That is not what I meant at all;

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That is not it, at all."

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And would it have been worth it, after all,

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Would it have been worth while,

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After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,

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After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor --

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And this, and so much more?--

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It is impossible to say just what I mean!

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But as if a magic lantern⁴ threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:

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Would it have been worth while

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If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,

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And turning toward the window, should say:

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"That is not it at all,

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That is not what I meant, at all."

      *       *       *       *

111

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;

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Am an attendant lord, one that will do

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To swell a progress,⁵ start a scene or two,

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Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,

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Deferential, glad to be of use,

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Politic, cautious, and meticulous;

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Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;

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At times, indeed, almost ridiculous--

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Almost, at times, the Fool.

120

I grow old . . . I grow old . . .

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I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

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Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?

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I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.

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I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

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I do not think that they will sing to me.

126

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves

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Combing the white hair of the waves blown back

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When the wind blows the water white and black.

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We have lingered in the chambers of the sea

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By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown

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Till human voices wake us, and we drown.