11.08.2008

Trick Ourselves in Portable Stanzas

Just a lovely stanza and a half from T. S. Eliot's "Gerontion"


After such knowledge, what forgiveness? Think now
History has many cunning passages, contrived corridors
And issues, deceives with whispering ambitions,
Guides us by vanities. Think now
She gives when our attention is distracted
And what she gives, gives with such supply confusions
That the giving famishes the craving. Gives too late
Into weak hands, what's thought can be dispensed with
Till the refusal propagates a fear. Think
Neither fear nor courage saves us. Unnatural vices
Are fathered by our heroism. Virtues
Are forced upon us by our impudent crimes.
There tears are shaken from the wrath-bearing tree.

The tiger springs in the new year. Us he devours. Think
at last
We have not reached conclusion, when I
Stiffen in a rented house. Think at last
I have not made this show purposelessly
And it is not by any concitation
Of the backwards devils
I would meet you upon this honestly.

2 comments:

Elizabeth said...

I think this will be tricking me all day.

Anonymous said...

What's up gf ? I hate to nag but it's friday....errrr...maybe I shoulda been a pair of ragged claws scuttling the floors of silent seas or something.