View source for "The Burial of the Dead" Annotations

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== Stanza 1 ==

    April is the cruellest month, breeding
    
    Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
    
    Memory and desire, stirring
    
    Dull roots with spring rain.

The beginning of this section is often described by scholars as an inversion of the beginning of the prologue to Chaucer's [[''The Canterbury Tales'']].  

    
    Winter kept us warm, covering
    
    Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
    
    A little life with dried tubers.

This section was perhaps inspired by [["To Our Ladies of Death"]] by James Thomson:
::::  "Our Mother feedeth thus our little life,
::::  That we in turn may feer her with out death"

    

    Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee

    With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,

    And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,                            10

    And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.

    Bin gar keine Russin, stamm' aus Litauen, echt deutsch.

    And when we were children, staying at the archduke's,

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

    And I was frightened. He said, Marie,

    Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.

    In the mountains, there you feel free.

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

== Stanza 2 ==


What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow

Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,                                  20

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,

And the dry stone no sound of water. Only

There is shadow under this red rock,

(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.                              30

:Frisch weht der Wind
:Der Heimat zu

:Mein Irisch Kind,

:Wo weilest du?

"You gave me hyacinths 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, and I knew nothing,                                    40

Looking into the heart of light, the silence.

Od' und leer das Meer.



== Stanza 3 ==

Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante,

Had a bad cold, nevertheless

Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe,

With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she,

Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor,

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

Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks,

The lady of situations.                                                 50

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.

I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring.

Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone,

Tell her I bring the horoscope myself:

One must be so careful these days.



== Stanza 4 ==

Unreal City,                                                            60

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.

Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,

And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.

Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,

To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours

With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.

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

"You who were with me in the ships at Mylae!                            70

"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, that's friend to men,

"Or with his nails he'll dig it up again!

"You! hypocrite lecteur! - mon semblable, - mon frere!"


Go back to [[Shoring Up Fragments Against Our Ruin: Quotations and Allusions]]