"What the Thunder Said" Annotations
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Go back to [[Shoring Up Fragments Against Our Ruin: Quotations and Allusions]] | Go back to [[Shoring Up Fragments Against Our Ruin: Quotations and Allusions]] | ||
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| + | 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 | ||
| + | |||
| + | 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 | ||
| + | If there were rock | ||
| + | And also water | ||
| + | And water 350 | ||
| + | A spring | ||
| + | A pool among the rock | ||
| + | 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 | ||
| + | |||
| + | 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? | ||
| + | |||
| + | 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 | ||
| + | |||
| + | 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. | ||
| + | |||
| + | 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 | ||
| + | |||
| + | 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 | ||
| + | |||
| + | 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 | ||
