Select Poems

By T. S. Eliot

An essential collection of classic poems by the father of modernist poetry.
 
In the masterly cadence of T. S. Eliot’s verse, the twentieth century found its definitive poetic voice, an incredible “image of its accelerated grimace,” in the words of Eliot’s friend and mentor Ezra Pound. This twenty-four-poem volume is a rich collection of Eliot’s greatest works—including the classic “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”—all of which unveil the desires, grievances, failures, and heart of modern humanity.
 
This collection includes “Gerontion,” “Burbank with a Baedeker: Bleistein with a Cigar,” “Sweeney Erect,” “A Cooking Egg,” “Le Directeur,” “Mélange Adultère de Tout,” “Lune de Miel,” “The Hippopotamus,” “Dans le Restaurant,” “Whispers of Immortality,” “Mr. Eliot’s Sunday Morning Service,” “Sweeney Among the Nightingales,” “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” “Portrait of a Lady,” “Preludes,” “Rhapsody on a Windy Night,” “Morning at the Window,” “The Boston Evening Transcript,” “Aunt Helen,” “Cousin Nancy,” “Mr. Apollinax,” “Hysteria,” “Conversation Galante,” and “La Figlia Che Piange.”
 
This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Media
• Release date: Jan 9, 2018
• ISBN: 9781504050173

T. S. Eliot

T.S. Eliot (1888-1965) was a British poet of American descent. Born in St. Louis, Missouri to a prominent family from Boston, Eliot was raised in a religious and intellectual household. Childhood ailments left Eliot isolated for much of his youth, encouraging his interest in literature. At the age of ten, he entered a preparatory school where he studied Latin, Ancient Greek, French, and German. During this time, he also began writing poetry. From 1906 to 1909, he studied at Harvard University, earning a Master of Arts in English literature and introducing himself to the poetry of the French Symbolists. Over the next several years, he studied Indian philosophy and Sanskrit at the Harvard Graduate School before attending Oxford on a scholarship to Merton College. Tiring of academic life, however, he abandoned his studies and moved to London, where he met the poet Ezra Pound. With Pound’s encouragement and editing, Eliot published such poems as “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” (1915) and “The Waste Land” (1922), works that earned him a reputation as one of the twentieth century’s leading poets and a major figure in literary Modernism. Living in England with his wife Vivienne—from whom he would separate in 1932—Eliot worked as a prominent publisher for Faber and Faber, working with such poets as W.H. Auden and Ted Hughes. He converted to Anglicanism in 1927, an event that inspired his poem “Ash-Wednesday” (1930) and led to the composition of his masterpiece Four Quartets (1943). Eliot was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948.

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Select Poems

T. S. Eliot

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Gerontion

Thou hast nor youth nor age

But as it were an after dinner sleep

Dreaming of both.

Here I am, an old man in a dry month,

Being read to by a boy, waiting for rain.

I was neither at the hot gates

Nor fought in the warm rain

Nor knee deep in the salt marsh, heaving a cutlass,

Bitten by flies, fought.

My house is a decayed house,

And the Jew squats on the window sill, the owner,

Spawned in some estaminet of Antwerp,

Blistered in Brussels, patched and peeled in London.

The goat coughs at night in the field overhead;

Rocks, moss, stonecrop, iron, merds.

The woman keeps the kitchen, makes tea,

Sneezes at evening, poking the peevish gutter.

I an old man,

A dull head among windy spaces.

Signs are taken for wonders. ‘We would see a sign!’

The word within a word, unable to speak a word,

Swaddled with darkness. In the juvescence of the year

Came Christ the tiger

In depraved May, dogwood and chestnut, flowering Judas,

To be eaten, to be divided, to be drunk

Among whispers; by Mr. Silvero

With caressing hands, at Limoges

Who walked all night in the next room;

By Hakagawa, bowing among the Titians;

By Madame de Tornquist, in the dark room

Shifting the candles; Fraulein von Kulp

Who turned in the hall, one hand on the door.

Vacant shuttles

Weave the wind. I have no ghosts,

An old man in a draughty house

Under a windy knob.

After such knowledge, what forgiveness? Think now

History has many cunning passages, contrived corridors

And issues, deceives with whispering ambitions,

Guides us by vanities. Think now

She gives when

Reviews for Select Poems

[msnikki · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I don't like poetry, but I liked this. I read it for sixth form, and Eliot's spiritual journey echoed mine. I recognised the words from the music of Cats, at the time I had no clue who inspired who.

[terris-7 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Poetry is just not my thing. I don't think I understood any of it. But that's just me. I really need to take a class to study T.S.Eliot's works, because I know he is a famous poet. I am just too ignorant to appreciate it ;)

[jlelliott_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

For some reason most poetry does not really resonate with me. One of the only poets I can stand is T.S. Eliot. His poetry is absurd and lyrical, providing just the barest glimpses at the underlying meaning. But the images stay with me.

[page.fault · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

In general, my reading tastes are pulp-press-simple. I can neither appreciate, nor enjoy, nor, I admit, even understand, poetry. But Eliot is different, and I don't know why. I have very little understanding of what is going on in the poems themselves, but the lines that are so seeped in meaning and imagery and are so tangible that I can taste them as I read.

I remember having to analyse the first part of "The Waste Land" in high school, and, for once, hating the ponderous application of reason and logic and inference and analysis to something that, to me, stands outside and in some ways beyond meaning.
So I don't really analyse the poems. I just read them for those evocative lines.

A few of my favourites:

~~~~~~~ "The Hollow Men" ~~~~~~~
(Probably my favorite poem, incidentally, possibly because it is both haunting and interpretable.)

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

'Remember us--if at all--not as lost
violent souls, but only
as the hollow men'

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

'Eyes I dare not meet in dreams'

'in that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom'

'The supplication of a dead man's hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star'

'Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone'

'In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley'

'The hope only
Of empty men'

'Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the shadow'

~~~~~~~ "The Waste Land" ~~~~~~~

'A heap of broken images, where the sun beats'

'I will show you fear in a handful of dust.'

'Looking into the heart of light, the silence.'

'Those are pearls that were his eyes.'

'Unreal City, Under the brown fog of a winter dawn'

'And still she cried, and still the world pursues.'

'The river's tent is broken; the last fingers of leaf
Clutch and sink into the wet bank.'

'Where the dead men lost their bones'

'Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song.'

'Throbbing between two lives'

'A current under sea
Pickled his bones in whispers.'

'Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison'

~~~~~~~The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock~~~~~~

'The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes'

'There will be a time to murder and create'

'I have measured my life with coffee spoons'

[ionas_7 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I imagine practically everyone literate knows or knows of T.S. Eliot and his erudite poems.He has a distinctive style, and there is a distinctive rhythm to his poems, so one always recognizes his authorship.I like his quotes in various languages, which I mostly understand, except the ones in Greek.I can’t say I understand what the poems mean, however; in fact, I would have appreciated the inclusion of an explanation/interpretation of them – absolutely.I remember studying Murder in the Cathedral years ago, at school, or university. That was comprehensible, as I recall, if I recall correctly, I don’t know Eliot’s work well enough to suggest the inclusion of other of his poems or extracts thereof.Here is an extract from The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock:“Let us go then, you and I,When the evening is spread out against the skyLike a patient etherised upon a table;Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, ---Let us go and make our visit. ---In the room the women come and goTalking of Michelangelo. ---I grow old … I grow old …I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.”From The Hollow Men:“We are the hollow menWe are the stuffed menLeaning togetherHeadpiece filled with straw. Alas!Our dried voices, whenWe whisper togetherAre quiet and meaninglessAs wind in dry grass ---Those who have crossed---- to death’s other KingdomRemember us – if at all – not as lostViolent souls, but onlyAs the hollow menThe stuffed men. ---This is the way the world endsThis is the way the world endsThis is the way the world endsNot with a bang but a whimper.”Extracts from The Waste Land and choruses from The Rock are also included in this selection.This was an enjoyable read, though somewhat cryptic.Now I will look into Eliot’s Four Quartets, The Family Reunion and The Cocktail Party.

[sometimeunderwater · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Could be worth 5 stars for Prufrock alone, and what with Waste Land, Hollow Men, etc. it's got the best of Eliot - perhaps the best poet of the period. Pretty light collection.

[figgles_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I first read TS Eliot at Uni nearly forty years ago and this is my Faber and Faber paperback study copy, complete with notes. It was interesting to revisit one of the great poets of the twentieth century and initially I was struck by the misanthropy (and anti semitism) of the early poems, however the later poems hauled me in with the beauty of the images and words and I mellowed towards the poet. There was still a certain disenchantment with humanity but also more sympathy with what it means to be a fallible human being.