T.S. Eliot Poem

The Hollow Men

I

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Remember us -- if at all -- not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

II

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death's dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind's singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer
In death's dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer --

Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom

III

This is the dead land
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.

La Belle Dame Sans Merci

 I have always been drawn to Pre-raphaelite art.

To truly understand the style, I will give a quick Art History lesson.  See, Michelangelo and Raphael were Masters, right?  They were trained under the Renaissance artists who sought for perfection of form, light, proportion.   Michelangelo and Raphael were trained that way but then 'matured' to an 'exaggerated extension' of realism.  You can see this in the later painting of these two (and some others who followed), you will note exaggerated, out of proportion bodies, long awkward necks, strange inhuman shaped limbs.  If you really take the time to look.  The "Mannerists"  painted in the style that Michelangelo and Raphael began.  It was viewed as a natural progression of art coming out of the High Renaissance.  Well, in 1848, a group of artists formed in England who viewed the High Renaissance style of realism more enlightening than the mannerism which followed.  The subjects of the art of the Pre-Raphaelites tended to be stories from mythology, fairy tales, and King Arthur.  They loved Medieval themes, since they felt that era was very spiritual and creative.   They strove to create art that was purposeful... expressing  a grand idea or thought.

Above is one of my favorite paintings.  I have a small print of it.  (would love to get a larger one eventually).  It is haunting.  Check out the realism in the fabric of her dress.  The desperation in her eyes.  The shine of metal.  I could never tire of this painting.  John William Waterhouse painted it, and he is probably my favorite artist of all time.  I like him partly because I love to look at his work.  But also because he paints literature.   Poetry in particular.....Tennyson, Keats, Homer.

The Keats poem "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" was painted by several Pre Raphaelites.





O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
       Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has withered from the lake,
       And no birds sing.

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
       So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel’s granary is full,
       And the harvest’s done.

I see a lily on thy brow,
       With anguish moist and fever-dew,
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
       Fast withereth too.

I met a lady in the meads,
       Full beautiful—a faery’s child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
       And her eyes were wild.

I made a garland for her head,
       And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She looked at me as she did love,
       And made sweet moan.

I set her on my pacing steed,
       And nothing else saw all day long,
For sidelong would she bend, and sing
       A faery’s song.

She found me roots of relish sweet,
       And honey wild, and manna-dew,
And sure in language strange she said—
       ‘I love thee true’.

She took me to her elfin grot,
       And there she wept and sighed full sore,
And there I shut her wild wild eyes
       With kisses four.

And there she lullèd me asleep,
       And there I dreamed—Ah! woe betide!—
The latest dream I ever dreamt
       On the cold hill side.

I saw pale kings and princes too,
       Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
They cried—‘La Belle Dame sans Merci
       Thee hath in thrall!’

I saw their starved lips in the gloam,
       With horrid warning gapèd wide,
And I awoke and found me here,
       On the cold hill’s side.

And this is why I sojourn here,
       Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is withered from the lake,
       And no birds sing.



I read several interpretations.  One of them deals with the knight's decision to forsake his real life and reality for an ideal of love that does not exist.  Another interesting one was that the woman is a form of the femme fatale... deliberately destructive.  A third idea was that he was under an enchantment of the imagination.  And his real life wasted away in pursuit of a world that is not real.


I am not sure what I think, I do know that fairy tales always give a shadow of truth. Often a deep spiritual truth. I must ponder this some more... what do you think?

Another thing I really like about the poem is the reference to Pale Kings.... reminds me of Frodo in the Lord of the Rings putting on the Ring while the Nazgul are chasing him and he sees the Pale King... but that has nothing to do with this tale.

Tree Poem Revised

I am still working on symmetry and alliteration.....
but here it is so far...

The Tree of Knowledge,  straight, pure, but forbidden,  devoured out of proper place and time brought the death-sickness upon creation.  The fruit distorting all on Earth.

The Tree of Life, the Cross, the twisted, dogwood crafted, standing upright.   It bore the Saviour into battle, to champion over the death-sickness foe.  Soon the promised fruit will be given, the same tree in Paradise giving us life-blood and life eternal.

The Tree of David which is the church,  those who seek after the True God, sprawling and growing, vines and branches, infusing the whole earth with Love.   The Champion is now the vine.  The branches bearing its Fruit to all those in soul- despair and sin-sickness until the return of Paradise.