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The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock · Ririro.com - Poetry

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  Speaker 1: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot.
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  Speaker 1: Sio credesse che mia risposta fosse a persona che mai
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  Speaker 1: tornasse al mondo, questa fiamma staria senza più scosse. Ma
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  Speaker 1: perciò che giamai di questo fondo non torno vivo alcun,
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  Speaker 1: siodo il vero, senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo. Let us go, then,
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  Speaker 1: you and I, when the evening is spread out against
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  Speaker 1: the sky like a patient etherized upon a table. Let
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  Speaker 1: us go through certain half-deserted streets, the muttering retreats of
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  Speaker 1: restless nights in one-night cheap hotels and sawdust restaurants with
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  Speaker 1: oyster shells, streets that follow like a tedious argument of
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  Speaker 1: insidious intent. to lead you to an overwhelming question. Oh,
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  Speaker 1: do not ask, what is it? Let us go and
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  Speaker 1: make our visit. In the room the women come and go,
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  Speaker 1: talking of Michelangelo. The yellow fog that rubs its back
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  Speaker 1: upon the window panes, the yellow smoke that rubs its
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  Speaker 1: muzzle on the window panes licked its tongue into the
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  Speaker 1: corners of the evenings. lingered upon the pools that stand
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  Speaker 1: in drains, let fall upon its back the soot that
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  Speaker 1: falls from chimneys, slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
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  Speaker 1: and seeing that it was a soft October night, curled
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  Speaker 1: once about the house and fell asleep. And indeed there
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  Speaker 1: will be time for the yellow smoke that slides along
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  Speaker 1: the street, rubbing its back upon the window panes, There
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  Speaker 1: will be time, there will be time to prepare a
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  Speaker 1: face to meet the faces that you meet. There will
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  Speaker 1: be time to murder and create, and time for all
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  Speaker 1: the works and days of hands that lift and drop
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  Speaker 1: a question on your plate. Time for you and time
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  Speaker 1: for me, and time yet for a hundred indecisions and
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  Speaker 1: for a hundred visions and revisions before the taking of
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  Speaker 1: a toast and tea. In the room the women come
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  Speaker 1: and go, talking of Michelangelo. And indeed there will be
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  Speaker 1: time to wonder, do I dare, and do I dare?
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  Speaker 1: Time to turn back and descend the stair, with a
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  Speaker 1: bald spot in the middle of my hair. They will
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  Speaker 1: say how his hair is growing thin. My mourning coat,
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  Speaker 1: my collar mounting firmly to the chin. my necktie rich
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  Speaker 1: and modest, but asserted by a simple pin, they will say,
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  Speaker 1: but how his arms and legs are thin. Do I
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  Speaker 1: dare disturb the universe? In a minute there is time
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  Speaker 1: for decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. For
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  Speaker 1: I have known them all already, known them all, I've
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  Speaker 1: known the evenings, mornings, afternoons. I have measured out my
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  Speaker 1: life with coffee spoons. I know the voice is dying
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  Speaker 1: with a dying fall beneath the music from a farther room.
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  Speaker 1: So how should I presume? And I have known the
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  Speaker 1: eyes already, known them all, the eyes that fix you
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  Speaker 1: in a formulated phrase. And when I am formulated, sprawling
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  Speaker 1: on a pin, when I am pinned and wriggling on
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  Speaker 1: the wall, then how should I begin to spit out
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  Speaker 1: all the butt-ends of my days and ways? And how
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  Speaker 1: should I presume? And I have known the arms already,
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  Speaker 1: known them all, arms that are braceleted and white and bare,
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  Speaker 1: but in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair. Is
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  Speaker 1: it perfume from a dress that makes me so digress?
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  Speaker 1: Arms that lie along a table or wrap about a shawl?
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  Speaker 1: And should I then presume? And how should I begin?
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  Speaker 1: Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow
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  Speaker 1: streets and watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
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  Speaker 1: of lonely men in shirt-sleeves leaning out of windows? I
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  Speaker 1: should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across
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  Speaker 1: the floors of silent seas. And the afternoon, the evening,
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  Speaker 1: sleeps so peacefully, smoothed by long fingers, asleep, tired, or
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  Speaker 1: it malingers, stretched on the floor here beside you and me.
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  Speaker 1: Should I, after tea and cakes and ices, have the
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  Speaker 1: strength to force the moment to its crisis? But though
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  Speaker 1: I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed, though I
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  Speaker 1: have seen my head, grown slightly bald, brought in upon
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  Speaker 1: a platter, I am no prophet, and here's no great matter.
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  Speaker 1: I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker, and
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  Speaker 1: I have seen the eternal footman hold my coat and snicker,
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  Speaker 1: and in short... I was afraid. And would it have
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  Speaker 1: been worth it, after all, after the cups, the marmalade,
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  Speaker 1: the tea, among the porcelain, among some talk of you
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  Speaker 1: and me, would it have been worthwhile to have bitten
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  Speaker 1: off the matter with a smile, to have squeezed the
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  Speaker 1: universe into a ball, to roll it toward some overwhelming question,
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  Speaker 1: to say, I am Lazarus, come from the dead, come
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  Speaker 1: back to tell you all, I shall tell you all.
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  Speaker 1: If one, settling a pillow by her head, should say,
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  Speaker 1: That is not what I meant at all, that is
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  Speaker 1: not it at all. And would it have been worth
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  Speaker 1: it after all? Would it have been worthwhile, after the
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  Speaker 1: sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets? after the novels,
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  Speaker 1: after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor,
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  Speaker 1: and this, and so much more. It is impossible to
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  Speaker 1: say just what I mean, but as if a magic
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  Speaker 1: lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen, would
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  Speaker 1: it have been worthwhile if one, settling a pillow or
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  Speaker 1: throwing off a shawl and turning toward the window, should say,
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  Speaker 1: That is not it at all. That is not what
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  Speaker 1: I meant at all. No, I am not Prince Hamlet,
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  Speaker 1: nor was meant to be. Am an attendant, Lord, one
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  Speaker 1: that will do to swell a progress, start a scene
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  Speaker 1: or two, advise the prince. No doubt an easy tool, deferential,
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  Speaker 1: glad to be of use, politic, cautious and meticulous. full
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  Speaker 1: of high sentence, but a bit obtuse, at times, indeed,
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  Speaker 1: almost ridiculous, almost, at times, the fool. I grow old,
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  Speaker 1: I grow old, I shall wear the bottoms of my
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  Speaker 1: trousers rolled. Shall I part my hair behind? Do I
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  Speaker 1: dare to eat a peach? I shall wear white flannel
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  Speaker 1: trousers and walk upon the beach. I have heard the
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  Speaker 1: mermaids singing each to each. I do not think that
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  Speaker 1: they will sing to me. I have seen them riding
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  Speaker 1: seaward on the waves, combing the white hair of the
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  Speaker 1: waves blown back when the wind blows the water white
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  Speaker 1: and black. We have lingered in the chambers of the
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  Speaker 1: sea by seagirls wreathed with seaweed red and brown till
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  Speaker 1: human voices wake us and we drown. End of poem.
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  Speaker 1: This recording is in the public domain.