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
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 …
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,
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,
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;
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.
In the room the women
come and go
Talking of
Michelangelo.
And indeed there will
be time
To wonder, “Do I
dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and
descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the
middle of my hair—
[They will say: “How
his hair is growing thin!”]
My morning coat, my
collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and
modest, but asserted by a simple pin—
[They will say: “But
how his arms and legs are thin!”]
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is
time
For decisions and
revisions which a minute will reverse.
For I have known them
all already, known them all:—
Have known the
evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my
life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying
with a dying fall
Beneath the music from
a farther room.
So how should I
presume?
And I have known the
eyes already, known them all—
The eyes that fix you
in a formulated phrase,
And when I am
formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and
wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the
butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I
presume?
And I have known the
arms already, known them all—
Arms that are
braceleted and white and bare
[But in the lamplight,
downed with light brown hair!]
It is perfume from a
dress
That makes me so
digress?
Arms that lie along a
table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then
presume?
And how should I begin?
Shall I say, I have
gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke
that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in
shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?…
I should have been a
pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the
floors of silent seas.
And the afternoon, the
evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long
fingers,
Asleep … tired … or
it malingers,
Stretched on the floor,
here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and
cakes and ices,
Have the strength to
force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept
and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my
head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet—and
here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment
of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the
eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was
afraid.
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.”
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.
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.
