The Waste Land (Part V) by T.S. Eliot

V. What the Thunder Said

After the torchlight red on sweaty faces 

After the frosty silence in the gardens 

After the agony in stony places 

The shouting and the crying 

Prison and palace and reverberation 

Of thunder of spring over distant mountains 

He who was living is now dead 

We who were living are now dying 

With a little patience 

Here is no water but only rock 

Rock and no water and the sandy road 

The road winding above among the mountains 

Which are mountains of rock without water 

If there were water we should stop and drink 

Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think 

Sweat is dry and feet are in the sand 

If there were only water amongst the rock 

Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit 

Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit 

There is not even silence in the mountains 

But dry sterile thunder without rain 

There is not even solitude in the mountains 

But red sullen faces sneer and snarl 

From doors of mudcracked houses 

                                      If there were water 

   And no rock 

   If there were rock 

   And also water 

   And water 

   A spring 

   A pool among the rock 

   If there were the sound of water only 

   Not the cicada 

   And dry grass singing 

   But sound of water over a rock 

   Where the hermit-thrush sings in the pine trees 

   Drip drop drip drop drop drop drop 

   But there is no water 

Who is the third who walks always beside you? 

When I count, there are only you and I together 

But when I look ahead up the white road 

There is always another one walking beside you 

Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded 

I do not know whether a man or a woman 

—But who is that on the other side of you? 

What is that sound high in the air 

Murmur of maternal lamentation 

Who are those hooded hordes swarming 

Over endless plains, stumbling in cracked earth 

Ringed by the flat horizon only 

What is the city over the mountains 

Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air 

Falling towers 

Jerusalem Athens Alexandria 

Vienna London 

Unreal 

A woman drew her long black hair out tight 

And fiddled whisper music on those strings 

And bats with baby faces in the violet light 

Whistled, and beat their wings 

And crawled head downward down a blackened wall 

And upside down in air were towers 

Tolling reminiscent bells, that kept the hours 

And voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells. 

In this decayed hole among the mountains 

In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing 

Over the tumbled graves, about the chapel 

There is the empty chapel, only the wind’s home. 

It has no windows, and the door swings, 

Dry bones can harm no one. 

Only a cock stood on the rooftree 

Co co rico co co rico 

In a flash of lightning. Then a damp gust 

Bringing rain 

Ganga was sunken, and the limp leaves 

Waited for rain, while the black clouds 

Gathered far distant, over Himavant. 

The jungle crouched, humped in silence. 

Then spoke the thunder 

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 

Damyata: 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 

 

                                    I sat upon the shore 

Fishing, with the arid plain behind me 

Shall I at least set my lands in order? 

London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down 

Poi s’ascose nel foco che gli affina 

Quando fiam uti chelidon—O swallow swallow 

Le Prince d’Aquitaine à la tour abolie 

These fragments I have shored against my ruins 

Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo’s mad againe. 

Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.

                  Shantih     shantih     shantih 

NOTE:  "The Waste Land is unified by its theme of despair. Its opening lines introduce the ideas of life's ultimate futility despite momentary flashes of hope. The poem goes on to present a sequence of short sketches following an individual's baffled search for spiritual peace. It concludes with resignation at the never-ending nature of the search.” -  www.bachelorandmaster.com