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S'io credesse
chc mia risposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse
al mondo,
Questa Gamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno
viva alcun, s'i'odo il vero,
Senza tema d'infamia
ti rispondo.
Let us go then, you and I,
When
the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a
patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through
certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And
sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that
follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question....
Oh, do
not ask, "What is it?"
Let us go and make our visit.
In the room the women come and go
Talking of
Michelangelo.
The yellow fog that rubs its back
upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its
muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the
corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that
stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that
falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a
sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October
night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.
And indeed there will be time
For the yellow
smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back
upon the window panes;
There will be time, there will
be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you
meet
There will be time to murder and create,
And
time for all the works and days of hands
That lift
and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and
time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the
taking of a toast and tea.
In the room the women
come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.
And
indeed there will be time
To wonder, "Do I dare?"
and, "Do I dare?"
Time to turn back and descend the
stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair--
(They will say: "How his hair is growing thin!")
My
morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple
pin--
(They will say: "But how his arms and legs are
thin!")
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a
minute there is time
For decisions and revisions
which a minute will reverse.
For I have known
them all already, known them all:
Have known the
evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out
my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying
with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther
room.
So how should I presume?
And I have
known the eyes already, known them all--
The eyes
that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am
formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and
wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To
spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And
how should I presume?
And I have known the arms
already, known them all--
Arms that are braceleted
and white and bare
(But in the lamplight, downed with
light brown hair!)
Is it perfume from a dress
That
makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or
wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?
. . . . . . . . .
Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of
lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?
I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling
across the floors of silent seas.
. . . . . . . . .
And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep ... tired ... or it
malingers.
Stretched on on the floor, here beside you
and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald)
brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet--and
here's no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my
greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal
Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I
was afraid.
And would it have been worth it,
after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off
the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the
universe into a ball
To roll it toward some
overwhelming question,
To say: "I am Lazarus, come
from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall
tell you all"--
If one, settling a pillow by her
head,
Should say: "That is not what I meant at all;
That is not it, at all."
And would it have been
worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled
streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after
the skirts
that trail along the floor--
And this,
and so much more?--
It is impossible to say just what
I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in
patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a
pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
"That is
not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all."
. . . . . . . . .
No!
I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an
attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress,
start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an
easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high
sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost
ridiculous--
Almost, at times, the Fool.
I
grow old ... I grow old ...
I shall wear the bottoms
of my trousers rolled.
Shall I part my hair behind?
Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel
trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the
mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that
they will sing to me.
I have seen them riding
seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the
waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white
and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of
the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and
brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
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