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 | 5 |
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 … | 10 |
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, | 15 |
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, | 20 |
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; | 25 |
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; | 30 |
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 | 35 |
Talking of Michelangelo. /excerpt from ts eliot's 'the love song of j. alfred prufrock' this is a brilliant poem, check out the whole things here (i think i am on a ts eliot/time kick and im feeling inspired again!) |