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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
etherised 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.
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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
|
|
Talking of
Michelangelo.
|
|
|
|
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
|
|
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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It is 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!
|
|
Smoothed by long
fingers,
|
|
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,
|
|
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,
|
|
And I have seen
the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
|
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And in short, I
was afraid.
|
|
|
|
And would it
have been worth it, after all,
|
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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,
|
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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.”
. . . . .
|
|
No! 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.
|
|
|
|
I grow old … I
grow old …
|
|
I shall wear the
bottoms of my trousers rolled.
|
|
|
|
Shall 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.
|
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|
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 sea-girls
wreathed with seaweed red and brown
|
|
Till human
voices wake us, and we drown.
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