Monday's Excerpts - The Waste Land and Other Poems by T.S. Eliot with editor Frank Kermode

     I'm going to do something a little different today with Monday's Excerpts. I'm going to post excerpts from various T.S. Eliot poems, all taken from the book The Waste Land and Other Poems. I just read the book this past week, and really enjoyed it. Now I regret putting it off for so long a few months ago! I'm going to highlight my favorite lines of the excerpts.

This Week's Book: The Waste Land and Other Poems by T.S. Eliot with editor Frank Kermode

Prufrock and Other Observations. 1917.
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But thought I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head (grown slight 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 sent he eternal Footman hold my coat, and I snicker,
And in short, I was afraid. (Page 6, lines 79-86)

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Prufrock and Other Observations. 1917.
Portrait of a Lady. Part II.
“You let it flow from you, you let it flow,
And youth is cruel, and has no more remorse
And smiles at situations which it cannot see.” (Pages 10-11, lines 47-49)

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The Waste Land. 1922.
Part 'V. What the Thunder Said'.
DA
Datta: what have we given?
My friend, blood shaking my heart
The awful daring of a moment’s surrender
Which an age of prudence can never retract
By this, and this only, we have existed
Which is not to be found in our obituaries
Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider
Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor
In our empty rooms
DA
Dayadhvam: I have heard the key
Turn in the door once and turn once only
We think of the key, each in his prison
Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison
Only at nightfall, aethereal rumours
Revive for a moment a broken Coriolanus
DA
Damyaya: The boat responded
Gaily, to the hand expert with sail and oar
The sea was calm, your heart would have responded
Gaily, when invited, beating obedient
To controlling hands (Pages 68-69, lines 400-422)

Books read this past week...
★★★★★ The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution by Richard Dawkins
★★★★☆ The Waste Land and Other Poems by T.S. Eliot with editor Frank Kermode
★★★★☆ Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harriss

(All title links link back to my webpages of them on Goodreads.com, a great library/reviewing/rating website for readers. Check it out, and add me as a friend if you decide to join!)