[Editor’s Note: December of 2022 will mark the centennial for the publication of T.S. Eliot’s landmark Modernist poem “The Waste Land.” A massive collage work that collects together the detritus of Western civilization in the aftermath of the Great War and the Spanish Flu pandemic, “The Waste Land” remains as challenging now as it was in 1922. So obscure were many of his literary allusions, that TS Eliot included some endnotes to help readers make sense of the poem.

[Except that his endnotes aren’t actually that helpful at all–at least, not entirely. Multiple allusions receive no endnote at all, you need to speak Latin to understand the untranslated Ovid selections in endnote 218 (not to mention French, German, and Italian for the endnotes 60, 63, 366, and 411), and the endnote for line 68 reads simply, “A phenomenon which I have often noticed”–at which point even the most pretentious literary scholar has to question just how much Eliot is simply screwing around with us.

[I don’t mean that flippantly: Eliot famously kept an autographed picture of Groucho Marx on his desk, which seems to indicate that, despite his reputation as that most dour of Modernist poets (he is the man who gave us “This is the way the world ends/not with a bang but a whimper”, after all), Eliot was possessed of a screwball sense of humor himself. As such, we can’t escape the impression that “The Waste Land” endnotes are also functioning as a joke at the reader’s expense.

[This is not to claim that “The Waste Land” itself is just a joke (although jokes are often the most serious statements we make). But it does mean that, as GK Chesterton once claimed of Jesus Christ Himself, there does seem to be some mirth lurking just beneath the surface of Old Possum (he was also the poet who gave us Cats, after all). Hence, we can’t help but feel that Eliot might approve of us appropriating his most notorious poem for our own ends, as we swap out some tongue-in-cheek endnotes of our own. Not only would such an approach be entirely keeping with ShipsofHagoth‘s M.O. of reading everything through our own idiosyncratic lens, we would also be following Eliot’s example, who himself appropriated the entirety of Western literature for his own ends, and cheekily added, “mediocre poets imitate, great poets steal”—as do we all. And if the whole thing is a sprawling mess, well, so is “The Waste Land”!]

I. The Burial of the Dead

April is the cruellest month^[1]Yeah, I was born that month, so April gets more cruel with each passing year for me as well; especially when I was a YSA, when every year after, let’s say, 23 (in the inspired words of … Continue reading breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land^[2]See, this also feels like a pretty obvious allusion to Walt Whitman’s When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d, written on the occasion of Abraham Lincoln’s death, that TS Eliot leaves … Continue readingmixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain.

Winter kept us warm, covering

Earth in forgetful snow, feeding

A little life with dried tubers^[3]Stem tubers are used as nutrient-holders to help certain plants like potatoes survive the winter, and are also used as a means of asexual reproduction. Sometimes when you’re single for awhile, … Continue reading

Summer surprised us^[4]Full disclosure: I think Summer is overrated, and that we all only have fond feelings for it cause that’s when school was out growing up. I personally do not enjoy feeling hot, sticky, … Continue reading, coming over the Starnbergersee^[5]Lake in southern Germany, in Bavaria–which again it would’ve been nice for Eliot to have mentioned that in his original endnotes–although, again, that’s assuming he actually … Continue reading

With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,^[6]Row of columns; it’s ok, I had to look it up too.

And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten^[7]Garden in central Munich, also in southern Germany. Incidentally, this is the area where the Nazi party would first rise to prominence. They, too, were trying to reformulate the shattered remnants … Continue reading,

And drank coffee^[8]Well, you see, that’s his first problem–breaking the Word of Wisdom! Clearly Eliot would’ve felt much more spiritually fulfilled if he had followed Section 89 more closely /s., and talked for an hour.

Bin gar keine Russin, stamm’ aus Litauen, echt deutsch^[9]What, you don’t have access to Google Translate yourself? We know for a fact that you’re reading this on a computer, you can look it up yourself. All joking aside, have you ever been … Continue reading.

And when we were children, staying at the arch-duke’s^[10]This is a reference to Franz Ferdinand, whose murder sparked all of WWI, right? Great band, by the way; I once blasted “Do You Want To” out of my car after a date with a hot girl in … Continue reading,

My cousin’s, he took me out on a sled,

And I was frightened^[11]In third grade, my family moved to a small town 3 hours south. In fourth grade, when went back up to visit. My best friend from first grade said I had changed; he never elaborated, but then, why … Continue reading. He said, Marie,

Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.

In the mountains, there you feel free^[12]Implying, of course, that everywhere else, you don’t feel free. And man, you don’t need a literary allusion to understand that feeling..

I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.

  What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow

Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,^[13]“And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots”. -Isaiah 11:1; 2 Nephi 21:1

You cannot say, or guess, for you know only

A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,

And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,^[14]The seagulls ate them all, obviously.

And the dry stone no sound of water^[15]So how is that perma-drought in the intermountain West going?. Only

There is shadow under this red rock^[16]Obviously TS Eliot had southern Utah in mind here.,

(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),

And I will show you something different from either

Your shadow at morning striding behind you

Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;

I will show you fear in a handful of dust^[17]“for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” -Genesis 3:19; also, the Temple Endowment ceremony

                      Frisch weht der Wind

Der Heimat zu

Mein Irisch Kind,

Wo weilest du?^[18]From Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde. Wagner was also a raging anti-Semite (Nietzsche actually ended his friendship with Wagner over it–and when Nietzsche is the good guy in your story, you … Continue reading

“You gave me hyacinths^[19]This poem’s first reference to a poisonous flower; see also our extended note below on Belladonna, which is also made in reference to a beautiful girl. first a year ago;

“They called me the hyacinth girl.”

—Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,

Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not

Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither

Living nor dead^[20]Neither living nor dead is a character from a Metallica song. A guy in my last mission district was a massive Metallica fan. He even liked the post-Black Album stuff. He even bought St. Anger when … Continue reading, and I knew nothing,

Looking into the heart of light, the silence.

Oed’ und leer das Meer.^[21]More Wagner

  Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante,^[22]There’s a Russian Clairvoyante in New York City who apparently is successful enough to purchase billboard space on the Brooklyn Belt Parkway. She advertises “love binding spells.”  … Continue reading

Had a bad cold, nevertheless

Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe,

With a wicked pack of cards.^[23]TS Eliot’s own endnote reads, “I am not familiar with the exact constitution of the Tarot pack of cards, from which I have obviously departed to suit my own convenience,” which is … Continue reading Here, said she,

Is your card, the drowned Phoenician^[24]The Phoenicians are most famous for inventing the alphabet, which is ironic, because the word Phoenician is not phonetic–nor is the word phonetic. Hugh Nibley, by the way, speculated that the … Continue reading Sailor,

(Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)

Here is Belladonna^[25]literally: “beautiful woman.” Also, a poisonous plant. So, appropriately named, in other words. Once in grad school, I made out with this beautiful girl–seriously, she was a … Continue reading, the Lady of the Rocks,

The lady of situations.

Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel,

And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card,

Which is blank, is something he carries on his back,

Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find

The Hanged Man. Fear death by water^[26]Too late, the Phoenician already drowned. You said so just a few lines ago, bro..

I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring.^[27]Ring around the rosie—the classic children’s rhyme of the Bubonic plague, which would be consistent with the then-recent Spanish Flu pandemic—or our now-recent COVID-19 pandemic.

Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone,^[28]Google informs me that Equitone is an architectural facade company in existence since the the 1950s. Probably not what Eliot was alluding to, if I had to guess.

Tell her I bring the horoscope myself:

One must be so careful these days.

  Unreal City,

Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,

A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,

I had not thought death had undone so many.^[29]Anyone who’s ever done Family History Work has been keenly, overwhelmingly aware of how many death has undone.

Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,

And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.

Flowed up the hill and down King William Street^[30]This is the Wall Street of London, the financial center of the Empire. Eliot himself worked at a bank before making a career as a poet. When I was at Iowa, I went to Church with a poet in the … Continue reading,

To where Saint Mary Woolnoth^[31]An Anglican Church near King William Street; Eliot would later convert to Anglicanism amidst his own crisis of faith in modernity. kept the hours

With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.^[32]Curfew at the BYUs.

There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying: “Stetson!

“You who were with me in the ships at Mylae^[33]Town in Siciliy, site of an ancient naval battle between the Roman and Carthaginian empires–the latter of which was established by the ancient Phoenicians, which connects to the earlier … Continue reading!

“That corpse you planted last year in your garden,

“Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?

“Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?

“Oh keep the Dog far hence^[34]Definitely not how you want someone to describe you in the singles ward., that’s friend to men,

“Or with his nails he’ll dig it up again!

“You! hypocrite lecteur!—mon semblable,—mon frère!”^[35]Baudelaire’s Flowers of Evil, “Hypocrite reader!–my similar–my brother!” There, was that so hard Eliot? Google Translate foils you again!

II. A Game of Chess^[36]I’m going to go ahead and assume that Eliot knew as much about chess as he did about Tarot cards.

The Chair she sat in, like a burnished throne,

Glowed on the marble, where the glass

Held up by standards wrought with fruited vines

From which a golden Cupidon^[37]Apparently this is just the French rendering of Cupid? That was a waste of a Google search. peeped out

(Another hid his eyes behind his wing)

Doubled the flames of sevenbranched candelabra^[38]I’m tempted to read into this candelabra an allusion to the menorah, save for Eliot’s own well-documented flirtations with anti-Semitism (speaking of fascist tendencies). Of course, most … Continue reading

Reflecting light upon the table as

The glitter of her jewels rose to meet it,

From satin cases poured in rich profusion;

In vials of ivory and coloured glass

Unstoppered, lurked her strange synthetic perfumes^[39]As opposed to natural perfumes? I’m asking sincerely here, I know jack all about perfumes.,

Unguent, powdered, or liquid—troubled, confused

And drowned the sense in odours; stirred by the air

That freshened from the window, these ascended

In fattening the prolonged candle-flames,

Flung their smoke into the laquearia,^[40]Now that’s a ten-dollar word! The google dictionary informs me that a laquearia is a “noun. rare, literary. a ceiling made of panels.” Rare indeed! Come to think of it, for all of … Continue reading

Stirring the pattern on the coffered ceiling.

Huge sea-wood fed with copper

Burned green and orange, framed by the coloured stone,

In which sad light a carvéd dolphin swam^[41]“I wish I could swim, like the dolphins, like dolphins can swim.” -David Bowie, Heroes. A girl I once dated thought that song was hilarious; I laughed too, but deep down I still thought … Continue reading.

Above the antique mantel was displayed

As though a window gave upon the sylvan scene

The change of Philomel^[42]Minor Greek mythological figure sometimes cited as a direct and figurative symbol in literary and artistic works in the Western canon. That’s per Wikipedia anyways, but really, how much can … Continue reading, by the barbarous king

So rudely forced; yet there the nightingale^[43]Likely a John Keats allusion–the Romantic poet still singing out in the wasteland.

Filled all the desert with inviolable voice

And still she cried, and still the world pursues,

“Jug Jug” to dirty ears.^[44]Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving isnothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled. -Titus 1:15

And other withered stumps of time

Were told upon the walls; staring forms

Leaned out, leaning, hushing the room enclosed.

Footsteps shuffled on the stair.

Under the firelight, under the brush, her hair

Spread out in fiery points

Glowed into words, then would be savagely still.

  “My nerves are bad tonight. Yes, bad. Stay with me.

“Speak to me. Why do you never speak. Speak.^[45]“O God, where art thou, and where is the pavilion that covereth thy hiding place”

  “What are you thinking of? What thinking? What?

“I never know what you are thinking. Think.”

  I think we are in rats’ alley

Where the dead men lost their bones.^[46]My Mom was of the opinion that when we are resurrected, God will simply clone our DNA to reproduce our bodies, not actually regather every last speck of dust that once belonged to us. Else, what … Continue reading

  “What is that noise?”

                          The wind under the door.

“What is that noise now? What is the wind doing?”^[47]“The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.” -John 3:8

                           Nothing again nothing.

                                                        “Do

“You know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember

“Nothing?”

       I remember

Those are pearls that were his eyes.

“Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your head?”   

                                                                           But

O O O O that Shakespearian Rag—

It’s so elegant

So intelligent^[48]The ever perennial question: do we read Shakespeare because we appreciate it, or because we feel like we’re supposed to? Is it possible to ever read Shakespeare for fresh, to find out? I … Continue reading

“What shall I do now? What shall I do?”

“I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street

“With my hair down, so. What shall we do tomorrow?

“What shall we ever do?”

                                               The hot water at ten.

And if it rains, a closed car at four.

And we shall play a game of chess,

Pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a knock upon the door.

  When Lil’s husband got demobbed, I said—

I didn’t mince my words, I said to her myself,

HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME^[49]Pretty much how I feel every single time Sacrament meeting runs over. I once had a roommate at the U who got up and left Sacrament right when the long-hand hit the hour mark, regardless of whether … Continue reading

Now Albert’s coming back, make yourself a bit smart.

He’ll want to know what you done with that money he gave you

To get yourself some teeth.^[50]Why are there so many Mormon dentists, by the way? I mean, I partly get it: dentistry allows you to help others, while still holding normal 9-5 hours so you can be home with and support your family. … Continue reading He did, I was there.

You have them all out, Lil, and get a nice set,

He said, I swear, I can’t bear to look at you.

And no more can’t I, I said, and think of poor Albert,

He’s been in the army four years, he wants a good time,

And if you don’t give it him, there’s others will, I said.^[51]I’m starting to think they are in a House of Ill-Repute!

Oh is there, she said. Something o’ that, I said.

Then I’ll know who to thank, she said, and give me a straight look.

HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME

If you don’t like it you can get on with it, I said.

Others can pick and choose if you can’t.

But if Albert makes off, it won’t be for lack of telling.

You ought to be ashamed, I said, to look so antique.

(And her only thirty-one.)^[52]Only thirty-one?! That’s when you get kicked out of a YSA ward in our Church! Seriously, we need to radically rethink our age-brackets in this faith.

I can’t help it, she said, pulling a long face,

It’s them pills I took, to bring it off, she said.

(She’s had five already, and nearly died of young George.)

The chemist said it would be all right, but I’ve never been the same.

You are a proper fool, I said.

Well, if Albert won’t leave you alone, there it is, I said,

What you get married for if you don’t want children?

HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME

Well, that Sunday Albert was home, they had a hot gammon,

And they asked me in to dinner, to get the beauty of it hot—

HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME

HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME

Goodnight Bill. Goodnight Lou. Goodnight May. Goodnight.

Ta ta. Goodnight. Goodnight.

Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night.^[53]Obligatory concluding track to Lou Reed’s Transformer (that’s the one with “Walk on the Wild Side” on it, his sole Top 40 hit–that’s right Lou Reed is technically … Continue reading

III. The Fire Sermon

  The river’s tent is broken: the last fingers of leaf

Clutch and sink into the wet bank. The wind

Crosses the brown land, unheard. The nymphs are departed.

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

The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers,

Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends

Or other testimony^[54]I read once–I forget where–that “testimony” is rooted in “testes,” that is, to swear on the most sacred part of your body that something is true. Obviously a very … Continue reading of summer nights. The nymphs are departed.

And their friends, the loitering heirs of city directors;

Departed, have left no addresses.

By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept . . .^[55]Allusion to both Psalm 137: By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion, as well as to the lake in Switzerland where Eliot recovered from his nervous breakdown … Continue reading

Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song,

Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or long.

But at my back in a cold blast I hear

The rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear.

A rat crept softly through the vegetation

Dragging its slimy belly on the bank

While I was fishing in the dull canal

On a winter evening round behind the gashouse

Musing upon the king my brother’s wreck

And on the king my father’s death before him.^[56]‘Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet,To give these mourning duties to your father;But you must know, your father lost a father;That father lost, lost his, and the survivor boundIn … Continue reading

White bodies naked on the low damp ground

And bones cast in a little low dry garret,

Rattled by the rat’s foot only, year to year.

But at my back from time to time I hear

The sound of horns and motors,^[57]Remember that the automobile is brand new technology, less than 20 years old, when TS Eliot wrote this poem–horse-drawn carriages, gas lights, and skies without airplanes still existed in … Continue reading which shall bring

Sweeney to Mrs. Porter in the spring.

O the moon shone bright on Mrs. Porter

And on her daughter

They wash their feet in soda water

Et O ces voix d’enfants, chantant dans la coupole!^[58]Some French sonnet, Eliot has his own footnote on it, google it yourself.

Twit twit twit

Jug jug jug jug jug jug^[59]I don’t care who ya are, that right there is high poetry.

So rudely forc’d.

Tereu

Unreal City

Under the brown fog of a winter noon

Mr. Eugenides, the Smyrna merchant

Unshaven, with a pocket full of currants

C.i.f.^[60]Cost, Insurance, Freight London: documents at sight,

Asked me in demotic French^[61]Is this like reformed Egyptian or something??

To luncheon at the Cannon Street Hotel

Followed by a weekend at the Metropole.

At the violet hour, when the eyes and back

Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits

Like a taxi throbbing waiting,

I Tiresias, though blind, throbbing between two lives,

Old man with wrinkled female breasts^[62]Yeah, yeah, Eliot says this is a reference to Tiresias, the blind hermaphrodite prophet of Greek mythology and Oedipus Rex, but I used to work in the Men’s Lockerroom at BYU-Idaho, and so I can … Continue readingcan see

At the violet hour, the evening hour that strives

Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea,

The typist home at teatime, clears her breakfast, lights

Her stove, and lays out food in tins.

Out of the window perilously spread

Her drying combinations touched by the sun’s last rays,

On the divan are piled (at night her bed)

Stockings, slippers, camisoles, and stays.

I Tiresias, old man with wrinkled dugs

Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest—

I too awaited the expected guest.

He, the young man carbuncular, arrives,

A small house agent’s clerk, with one bold stare,

One of the low on whom assurance sits

As a silk hat on a Bradford millionaire.

The time is now propitious, as he guesses,

The meal is ended, she is bored and tired,

Endeavours^[63]TS Eliot was born and raised in Missouri, and educated in Massachusetts, but he still insists on the British spelling of everything, that traitor! to engage her in caresses

Which still are unreproved, if undesired.

Flushed and decided, he assaults at once;

Exploring hands encounter no defence;

His vanity requires no response,

And makes a welcome of indifference.

(And I Tiresias have foresuffered all

Enacted on this same divan or bed;

I who have sat by Thebes below the wall

And walked among the lowest of the dead.)

Bestows one final patronising kiss,

And gropes his way, finding the stairs unlit . . .

She turns and looks a moment in the glass,

Hardly aware of her departed lover;

Her brain allows one half-formed thought to pass:

“Well now that’s done: and I’m glad it’s over.”^[64]Having done my time in the Singles Wards myself, I can testify that the only thing worse than not kissing anyone is to finally kiss someone and for this to be there reaction.

When lovely woman stoops to folly and

Paces about her room again, alone,

She smoothes her hair with automatic hand,

And puts a record on the gramophone.^[65]Ironically, the automation of the gramophone is supposed to reflect the “automatic hand” of the previous line, implying how the rise of automation has transformed us all into unfeeling … Continue reading

“This music crept by me upon the waters”

And along the Strand, up Queen Victoria Street.

O City city, I can sometimes hear

Beside a public bar in Lower Thames Street,

The pleasant whining of a mandoline

And a clatter and a chatter from within

Where fishmen lounge at noon: where the walls

Of Magnus Martyr^[66]An Anglican Church by the London Bridge. The first time I visited the London Bridge, this young Irish tourguide told me that for only 30 pounds, I could fly to Dublin and get “absolutely … Continue reading hold

Inexplicable splendour of Ionian white and gold.

               The river sweats

               Oil and tar

               The barges drift

               With the turning tide

               Red sails

               Wide

               To leeward, swing on the heavy spar.

               The barges wash

               Drifting logs

               Down Greenwich reach

               Past the Isle of Dogs.

                                 Weialala leia

                                 Wallala leialala^[67]When critics cite “The Waste Land” as one of the most important poems of the 20th century, I’m pretty sure they’re not referring to this line specifically.

               Elizabeth and Leicester

               Beating oars

               The stern was formed

               A gilded shell

               Red and gold

               The brisk swell

               Rippled both shores

               Southwest wind

               Carried down stream

               The peal of bells

               White towers

                                Weialala leia

                                Wallala leialala^[68]Walla Walla is a city in Washington, and is up there with Albuquerque and Timbuctoo as go-to funniest place names on Earth. Other than that, I got nothin’.

“Trams and dusty trees.

Highbury bore me. Richmond and Kew

Undid me. By Richmond I raised my knees

Supine on the floor of a narrow canoe.”

“My feet are at Moorgate, and my heart

Under my feet. After the event

He wept. He promised a ‘new start.’

I made no comment. What should I resent?”

“On Margate Sands.

I can connect

Nothing with nothing.

The broken fingernails of dirty hands.

My people humble people who expect

Nothing.”

                       la la^[69]Another classic line from the most influential poem of the 20th century!

To Carthage then I came^[70]The burning of Carthage by Rome leads directly into the dead Phoenician in Part IV of this poem.

Burning burning burning burning

O Lord Thou pluckest me out^[71]From The Confessions of Saint Augustine.

O Lord Thou pluckest

burning

IV. Death by Water

Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,

Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell

And the profit and loss.^[72]Coming from a banker, those are big words indeed. Something to remember amidst our own current glut of LDS pyramid schemers, Utah Valley start-ups, and BYU MBA-types. There’s a reason the … Continue reading

                                   A current under sea

Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell

He passed the stages of his age and youth

Entering the whirlpool.

                                   Gentile or Jew^[73]The two groups for whom Nephi has charity (2 Nephi 26:30)–yes, even for an anti-Semite like Old Possum.

O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,

Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.^[74]Ha! Jokes on you! I was never tall and handsome!

V. What the Thunder Said

  After the torchlight red on sweaty faces

After the frosty silence in the gardens^[75]I sometimes wonder, when Christ in the garden pleaded with the Father to “let this cup pass from me,” if he was greeted by silence…

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^[76]An allusion to Moses getting water from the rock, I believe–and by extension the “living waters” Eliot yearns for but doesn’t see. As apt a description of a faith crisis as … Continue reading

Rock and no water and the sandy road

The road winding above among the mountains

Which are mountains of rock without water^[77]A fair description of perma-drought, climate-change Utah, frankly. Seriously, stop making the wasteland literal, guys.

If there were water we should stop and drink

Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think

Sweat is dry^[78]Utah’s is indeed a “dry heat.” 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^[79]You didn’t even realize it, but we just had 2 sets of rhyming couplets over the last 5 lines!

There is not even silence in the mountains

But dry sterile thunder without rain

There is not even solitude in the mountains^[80]Indeed, Zions National Park is now so overrun with tourists as to need a lottery just to scale Angel’s Landing (ironically).

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^[81]Cicadas do indeed sound like a transformer blowing–they are not comforting at all.

   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^[82]Once again, a line featured in the most important poem of all of High Modernism!

   But there is no water

Who is the third who walks always beside you?^[83]On the road to Emmaus, Luke 24; ignore Eliot’s own footnote about Antarctic explorers (“I forget which”), he’s clearly messing with you here, too.

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^[84]Well then I guess it’s woman then, isn’t it! 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^[85]It’s like a tourist bag or something

Unreal

A woman drew her long black hair out tight^[86]It was in fact a brunette I made out with that New Years Eve.

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.^[87]For all this poem’s difficulty, ya gotta give credit where credit is due: these past several lines are all excellent metaphors for loss of religious faith! (Something to bare in mind when we … Continue reading

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^[88]Yet again, a line from the most influential, ground-breaking poem of the past hundred years!

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^[89]OK, admittedly you have to hunt for them, but you gotta admit, lines like these last three are pretty killer in isolation. I mean, we still understand this today, right? Obituaries, resumes, CVs, … Continue reading

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^[90]Shakespearean tragedy about an abused Roman general who does not know how to re-adapt to civilian life.

DA

Damyata: The boat responded

Gaily, to the hand expert with sail and oar

The sea was calm^[91]Christ calmed the waves; for all of its religious doubt and anguish, I do not believe “The Waste Land” can be credibly read as an anti-religious poem; it’s about the anguish of … Continue reading, your heart would have responded

Gaily, when invited, beating obedient

To controlling hands

                                    I sat upon the shore

Fishing^[92]Like the apostles waiting to be called upon to “come, follow me”, with the arid plain behind me

Shall I at least set my lands in order?

London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down^[93]A phenomenon which I have often noticed

Poi s’ascose nel foco che gli affina^[94]Dante’s Inferno

Quando fiam uti chelidon^[95]From the ancient Roman poem Pervigilium Veneris (or The Vigil of Venus).—O swallow swallow^[96]From “The Princess,” by Lord Alfred Tennyson.

Le Prince d’Aquitaine à la tour abolie^[97]From the French poem “El Desdichado” by Gerard de Nerval.

These fragments I have shored against my ruins^[98]Kinda the theme of the entire poem; I tend to think Eliot shoulda lead with this line.

Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo’s mad againe.^[99]From Thomas Kyd’s 1588 drama “The Spanish Tragedy,” the plot of which is flagrantly ripped off by Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” which again, Eliot thought was … Continue reading

Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.

                  Shantih     shantih     shantih^[100]TS Eliot’s own footnotes say that “the peace which surpasseth understanding is a feeble translation” of this line–but I did indeed write an essay on this stanza back at BYUI, … Continue reading