Selected Poems Quotes

“Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky”
― T.S. Eliot, Selected Poems

“Unreal City,
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.
Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,
And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.
Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,
To where St Mary Woolnoth kept the hours
With a dead sound on the final stock of nine.
There I saw one I knew, and stopped him crying: 'Stetson!
You, who were with me in the ships at Mylae!
That corpse you planted last year in your garden,
Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?
Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?
Oh keep the Dog far hence, that's friend to men,
Or with his nails he'll dig it up again!
You! hypocrite lecteur!-mon semblable,-mon frere!”
― T.S. Eliot, Selected Poems

“This is the time of tension between dying and birth
The place of solitude where three dreams cross
Between blue rocks
But when the voices shaken from the yew-tree drift away
Let the other yew be shaken and reply.
Blessèd sister, holy mother, spirit of the fountain, spirit of the garden,
Suffer us not to mock ourselves with falsehood
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still
Even among these rocks,
Our peace in His will
And even among these rocks
Sister, mother
And spirit of the river, spirit of the sea,
Suffer me not to be separated

And let my cry come unto Thee.”
― T.S. Eliot, Selected Poems

“I would meet you upon this honestly.
I that was near your heart was removed therefrom
To lose beauty in terror, terror in inquisition.
I have lost my passion: why should I need to keep it
Since what is kept must be adulterated?
I have lost my sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch:
How should I use them for your closer contact?”
― T.S. Eliot, Selected Poems

“You will go on, and when you have prevailed
You can say: at this point many a one has failed.
But what have I, but what have I, my friend,
To give you, what can you receive from me?
Only the friendship and the sympathy
Of one about to reach her journey's end.
I shall sit here, serving tea to friends...”
― T.S. Eliot, Selected Poems

“Do I dare Disturb the universe? In a minute there is time For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.”
― T.S. Eliot, Selected Poems: Essential T.S. Eliot—Celebrated Modern Verse Chosen by the Poet Himself

“What life have you if you have not life together?
There is no life that is not in community,
And no community not lived in praise of GOD.”
― T.S. Eliot, Selected Poems

“Our beginnings never know our ends.”
― T.S. Eliot, Selected Poems

“Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse”
― T.S. Eliot, Selected Poems

“Every street lamp that I pass Beats like a fatalistic drum, And through the spaces of the dark Midnight shakes the memory As a madman shakes a dead geranium.”
― T.S. Eliot, Selected Poems: Essential T.S. Eliot—Celebrated Modern Verse Chosen by the Poet Himself

“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.”
― T.S. Eliot, Selected Poems

“Because I know that time is always time
And place is always and only place
And what is actual is actual only for one time
And only for one place
I rejoice that things are as they are and
I renounce the blessed face
And renounce the voice
Because I cannot hope to turn again
Consequently I rejoice, having to construct something
Upon which to rejoice.”
― T.S. Eliot, Selected Poems

“The notion of some infinitely gentle
Infinitely suffering thing.”
― T.S. Eliot, Selected Poems

“Well! and what if she should die some afternoon,
Afternoon grey and smoky, evening yellow and rose;
Should die and leave me sitting pen in hand
With the smoke coming down above the housetops;
Doubtful, for a while
Not knowing what to feel or if I understand
Or whether wise or foolish, tardy or too soon ...
Would she not have the advantage, after all?
This music is successful with a 'dying fall'
Now that we talk of dying —
And should I have the right to smile?”
― T.S. Eliot, Selected Poems

“Now that lilacs are in bloom
She has a bowl of lilacs in her room
And twists one in her fingers while she talks.
'Ah, my friend, you do not know, you do not know
What life is, you who hold it in your hands';
(Slowly twisting the lilac stalks)
'You let it flow from you, you let it flow,
And youth is cruel, and has no remorse
And smiles at situations which it cannot see.'
I smile, of course,
And go on drinking tea.”
― T.S. Eliot, Selected Poems

“Teach us to sit still. — T.S. Eliot, from “Ash Wednesday,” Selected Poems (Faber & Faber; 80th ed. Edition, May 7, 2009) Originally January 1, 1936.”
― T.S. Eliot, Selected Poems

“Well! and what if she should die some afternoon, Afternoon grey and smoky, evening yellow and rose; Should die and leave me sitting pen in hand With the smoke coming down above the housetops; Doubtful, for a while Not knowing what to feel or if I understand Or whether wise or foolish, tardy or too soon . . . Would she not have the advantage, after all? This music is successful with a “dying fall” Now that we talk of dying— And should I have the right to smile?”
― T.S. Eliot, Selected Poems: Essential T.S. Eliot—Celebrated Modern Verse Chosen by the Poet Himself

“And for a hundred visions and revisions,”
― T.S. Eliot, Selected Poems: Essential T.S. Eliot—Celebrated Modern Verse Chosen by the Poet Himself

“Streets that follow like a tedious argument Of insidious intent”
― T.S. Eliot, Selected Poems: Essential T.S. Eliot—Celebrated Modern Verse Chosen by the Poet Himself

“The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter"

After Li Po

While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead
I played about the front gate, pulling flowers.
You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse,
You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums.
And we went on living in the village of Chōkan:
Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.
At fourteen I married My Lord you.
I never laughed, being bashful.
Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.
Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.

At fifteen I stopped scowling,
I desired my dust to be mingled with yours
Forever and forever, and forever.
Why should I climb the look out?

At sixteen you departed
You went into far Ku-tō-en, by the river of swirling eddies,
And you have been gone five months.
The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead.

You dragged your feet when you went out.
By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses,
Too deep to clear them away!
The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.
The paired butterflies are already yellow with August
Over the grass in the West garden;
They hurt me.
I grow older.
If you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang,
Please let me know beforehand,
And I will come out to meet you
As far as Chō-fū-Sa.

Ezra Pound, Selected Poems (1957)”
― Ezra Pound, Selected Poems