View source for "What the Thunder Said" Annotations

Go to [[The Waste Land Text]]

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

==Stanza 1==

===Lines 322-330===


    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 330

==Stanza 2==

===Lines 331-351===

    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 340
    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
    
===Lines 348-352===
    
    If there were rock
    And also water
    And water 350
    A spring
    A pool among the rock
    
===Lines 353-359===

    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

==Stanza 3==

===Lines 360-366===

    Who is the third who walks always beside you? 360
    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?

==Stanza 4==
    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 370
    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

==Stanza 5==
    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 380
    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.

==Stanza 6==
    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, 390
    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

==Stanza 7==
    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 400
    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 410
    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, aetherial rumours
    Revive for a moment a broken Coriolanus
    DA
    Damyata: The boat responded
    Gaily, to the hand expert with sail and oar 420
    The sea was calm, your heart would have responded
    Gaily, when invited, beating obedient
    To controlling hands

==Stanza 8==
    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 ceu chelidon - O swallow swallow
    Le Prince d'Aquitaine a la tour abolie 430
    These fragments I have shored against my ruins
    Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo's mad againe.
    Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.
    Shantih shantih shantih