The Waste Land (Death by Water, What the Thunder Said) T.S Eliot

IV. Death by Water

 Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,  Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swellAnd the profit and loss.                         A current under seaPicked his bones in whispers.  As he rose and fellHe passes the stages of his age and youthEntering the whirlpool.                Gentile or JewO you who turn the wheel and look windward,Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.Title Page

V. What the Thunder Said 

   After the torchlight red on sweaty facesAfter the frosty silence in the gardensAfter the agony in stony placesThe shouting and the cryingPrison and palace and reverberationOf thunder of spring over distant mountainsHe who was living is now deadWe who were living are now dyingWith a little patience  Here is no water but only rockRock and no water and the sandy roadThe road winding above among the mountainsWhich are mountains of rock without waterIf there were water we should stop and drinkAmongst the rock one cannot stop or thinkSweat is dry and feet are in the sandIf there were only water amongst the rockDead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spitHere one can neither stand not lie nor sitThere is not even silence in the mountainsBut dry sterile thunder without rainThere is not even solitude in the mountainsBut red sullen faces sneer and snarlFrom doors of mudcracked houses                              If there were waterAnd no rockIf there were rockAnd also waterAnd water  A springA pool among the rockIf there were the sound of water onlyNot the cicadaAnd dry grass singingBut sound of water over a rockWhere the hermit-thrush sings in the pine treesDrip drop drip drop drop drop drop But there is no water  Who is the third who walks always beside you?When I count, there are only you and I together But when I look ahead up the white roadThere is always another one walking beside youGliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hoodedI do not know whether a man or a woman- But who is that on the other side of you?  What is that sound high in the air Murmur of maternal lamentationWho are those hooded hordes swarming Over endless plains, stumbling in cracked earthRinged by the flat horizon onlyWhat is the city over the mountainsCracks and reforms and bursts in the violet airFalling towersJerusalem Athens AlexandriaVienna LondonUnreal  A woman drew her long black hair out tightAnd fiddled whisper music on those stringsAnd bats with baby faces in the violet light  Whistled, and beat their wingsAnd crawled head downward down a blackened wallAnd upside down in air were towersTolling reminiscent bells, that kept the hoursAnd voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells.  In this decayed hole among the mountainsIn the faint moonlight, the grass is singingOver the tumbled graves, about the chapelThere is the empty chapel, only the wind's home.It has no windows, and the door swings,Dry bones can harm no one.Only a cock stood on the rooftreeCo co rico co co rico In a flash of lightning.  Then a damp gustBringing rain  Ganga was sunken, and the limp leavesWaited for rain, while the black cloudsGathered far distant, over Himavant.The jungle crouched, humped in silence.Then spoke the thunderDADatta: what have we given? My friend, blood shaking my heartThe awful daring of a moment's surrenderWhich an age of prudence can never retractBy this, and this only, we have existedWhich is not to be found in our obituariesOr in memories draped by the beneficent spider Or under seals broken by the lean solicitorIn our empty roomsDA  Dayadhvam: I have heard the keyTurn in the door once and turn once only We think of the key, each in his prisonthinking of the key, each confirms a prisonOnly at nightfall, aethereal rumoursRevive for a moment a broken CoriolanusDADamyata: The boat respondedGaily, to the hand expert with sail and oarThe sea was calm, your heart would have respondedGaily, when invited, beating obedientTo controlling hands                  I sat upon the shoreFishing, with the arid plain behind me Shall I at least set my lands in order?London Bridge is falling down falling down falling downPoi s'ascose nel foco che gli affina Quando fiam uti chelidon - O swallow swallow Le Prince d'Aquitaine à la tour abolie  These fragments I have shored against my ruinsWhy then Ile fit you.  Hieronymo's mad againe. Datta.  Dayadhvam.  Damyata.      Shantih shantih shantih