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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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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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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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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
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Talking of Michelangelo.
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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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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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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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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!
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Smoothed by long fingers,
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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,
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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,
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And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
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And in short, I was afraid.
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And would it have been worth it, after all,
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After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
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Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
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Would it have been worth while,
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To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
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To have squeezed the universe into a ball
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To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
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To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
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Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—
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If one, settling a pillow by her head,
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Should say: “That is not what I meant at all.
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And would it have been worth it, after all,
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Would it have been worth while,
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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—
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And this, and so much more?—
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It is impossible to say just what I mean!
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But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
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Would it have been worth while
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If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
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And turning toward the window, should say:
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That is not what I meant, at all.”
. . . . .
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No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
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Am an attendant lord, one that will do
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To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
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Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
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Deferential, glad to be of use,
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Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
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Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
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At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
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Almost, at times, the Fool.
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I grow old … I grow old …
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I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
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Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
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I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
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I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
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I do not think that they will sing to me.
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I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
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Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
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When the wind blows the water white and black.
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We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
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By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
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Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
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