Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, SWEENEY AMONG THE NIGHTINGALES, by THOMAS STEARNS ELIOT


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

SWEENEY AMONG THE NIGHTINGALES, by             Poem Explanation     Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Apeneck sweeney spreads his knees
Last Line: To stain the stiff dishonoured shroud.
Alternate Author Name(s): Eliot, T. S.
Subject(s): Constellations; Decay; Mythology; Rot; Decadence


Apeneck Sweeney spread his knees
Mistah Kurtz-he dead
A penny for the Old Guy
Letting his arms hang down to laugh,
The zebra stripes along his jaw
I
We are the hollow men
Swelling to maculate giraffe.
We are the stuffed men

Leaning together
The circles of the stormy moon
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Slide westward toward the River Plate,
Our dried voices, when
Death and the Raven drift above
We whisper together
And Sweeney guards the hornéd gate.

Are quiet and meaningless
Gloomy Orion and the Dog
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
Are veiled; and hushed the shrunken seas;
In our dry cellar
The person in the Spanish cape
Tries to sit on Sweeney's knees


Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;
Slips and pulls the table cloth

Overturns a coffee-cup,
Those who have crossed
Reorganized upon the floor
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
She yawns and draws a stocking up;

Remember us-if at all-not as lost
The silent man in mocha brown
Violent souls, but only
Sprawls at the window-sill and gapes;
As the hollow men
The waiter brings in oranges
The stuffed men.
II
Banana figs and hothouse grapes;
Eyes I dare not meet in dreams

The silent vertebrate in brown
In death's dream kingdom
These do not appear:
Contracts and concentrates, withdraws;
There, the eyes are
Rachel nee Rabinovitch
Tears at the grapes with murderous paws;
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging

She and the lady in the cape
And voices are
Are suspect, thought to be in league;
In the wind's singing
Therefore the man with heavy eyes
More distant and more solemn
Declines the gambit, shows fatigue,
Than a fading star.


Let me be no nearer
Leaves the room and reappears
In death's dream kingdom
Outside the window, leaning in,
Branches of wisteria
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Circumscribe a golden grin;

Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves
The host with someone indistinct
In a field
Converses at the door apart,
Behaving as the wind behaves
The nightingales are singing near
No nearer-

The Convent of the Sacred Heart,
Not that final meeting

In the twilight kingdom
And sang within the bloody wood
III
When Agamemnon cried aloud,
And let their liquid siftings fall
This is the dead land
To stain the stiff dishonoured shroud.
This is cactus land

Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man's hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this
In death's other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.
IV
The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death's twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.
V
Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o'clock in the morning.

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow

For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow

Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow

For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.





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