Reply
Thu 7 Oct, 2004 10:20 pm
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 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,
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.?
Beautiful. This is a favorite of mine...he is definitely a master of words.
Is that J. Alfred Prufrock, dys? That's the only poem by Thomas Stern that I ever got a handle on. Try reading The Wasteland sometime.
"Gentile or Jew
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you."
That snippet has stuck with me since I first read it 26 years ago. What a master of his craft!