View source for "The Burial of the Dead" Annotations

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== Stanza 1 ==

=== Geoffrey Chaucer, Lines 1-4===


  
    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'']].

===James Thomson, Lines 5-7===

    
    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 feed her with our death"

===Lines 8-11===
    

    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.

===Line 12===
    
    ''Bin gar keine Russin, stamm' aus Litauen, echt deutsch.''



===Lines 13-16===
    
    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.

===Lines 17-18===
    
    In the mountains, there you feel free.
    
    I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.

== Stanza 2 ==

===Lines 19-30===

    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



===Lines 31-34===

            Frisch weht der Wind
    
            Der Heimat zu
    
            Mein Irisch Kind,
    
            Wo weilest du?


===Lines 35-36===


    "You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;
   
     "They called me the hyacinth girl."



===Lines 37-41===

    - 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.


===Line 42===

    Od' und leer das Meer.

== Stanza 3 ==

===Lines 43-48===

    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!)


===Lines 49-50===
    
    Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks,
    
    The lady of situations.                                                 50
   

===Lines 51-55===

    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.

===Line 56===

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


===Lines 57-59===

    Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone,
    
    Tell her I bring the horoscope myself:
    
    One must be so careful these days.

== Stanza 4 ==



===Lines 60-63===
   
    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.


===Lines 64-65===

    Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,
    
    And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.


===Lines 66-68===

    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.

===Lines 69-76===

    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!"


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