| [00:01.770] |
Let us go then, you and I, |
| [00:04.894] |
When the evening is spread out against the sky |
| [00:08.011] |
Like a patient etherized upon a table; |
| [00:11.329] |
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, |
| [00:15.135] |
The muttering retreats |
| [00:17.064] |
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels |
| [00:21.274] |
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells: |
| [00:25.169] |
Streets that follow like a tedious argument |
| [00:29.138] |
Of insidious intent |
| [00:31.337] |
To lead you to an overwhelming question ... |
| [00:33.970] |
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?“ |
| [00:36.571] |
Let us go and make our visit. |
| [00:39.935] |
In the room the women come and go |
| [00:44.915] |
Talking of Michelangelo. |
| [00:47.386] |
The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes, |
| [00:52.940] |
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes, |
| [00:57.965] |
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening, |
| [01:01.662] |
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains, |
| [01:06.463] |
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys, |
| [01:10.527] |
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap, |
| [01:14.122] |
And seeing that it was a soft October night, |
| [01:18.213] |
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep. |
| [01:23.442] |
And indeed there will be time |
| [01:26.484] |
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street, |
| [01:29.548] |
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes; |
| [01:32.726] |
There will be time, there will be time |
| [01:35.374] |
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet; |
| [01:38.994] |
There will be time to murder and create, |
| [01:42.326] |
And time for all the works and days of hands |
| [01:46.317] |
That lift and drop a question on your plate; |
| [01:50.218] |
Time for you and time for me, |
| [01:53.656] |
And time yet for a hundred indecisions, |
| [01:56.629] |
And for a hundred visions and revisions, |
| [01:59.827] |
Before the taking of a toast and tea. |
| [02:03.760] |
In the room the women come and go |
| [02:08.373] |
Talking of Michelangelo. |
| [02:11.094] |
And indeed there will be time |
| [02:14.566] |
To wonder, “Do I dare?“ and, “Do I dare?“ |
| [02:18.966] |
Time to turn back and descend the stair, |
| [02:22.144] |
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair-- |
| [02:24.831] |
(They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!“) |
| [02:28.349] |
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin, |
| [02:32.842] |
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin-- |
| [02:37.442] |
(They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!“) |
| [02:41.590] |
Do I dare |
| [02:43.610] |
Disturb the universe? |
| [02:45.559] |
In a minute there is time |
| [02:48.135] |
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. |
| [02:55.173] |
For I have known them all already, known them all: |
| [02:59.112] |
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, |
| [03:03.103] |
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons; |
| [03:07.679] |
I know the voices dying with a dying fall |
| [03:11.641] |
Beneath the music from a farther room. |
| [03:14.502] |
So how should I presume? |
| [03:18.237] |
And I have known the eyes already, known them all-- |
| [03:22.793] |
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase, |
| [03:25.883] |
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin, |
| [03:30.188] |
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall, |
| [03:33.766] |
Then how should I begin |
| [03:36.370] |
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways? |
| [03:39.659] |
And how should I presume? |
| [03:42.892] |
And I have known the arms already, known them all-- |
| [03:48.383] |
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare |
| [03:51.705] |
(But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!) |
| [03:55.945] |
Is it perfume from a dress |
| [03:59.841] |
That makes me so digress? |
| [04:00.023] |
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl. |
| [04:04.708] |
And should I then presume? |
| [04:07.793] |
And how should I begin? |
| [04:10.701] |
Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets |
| [04:18.069] |
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes |
| [04:22.173] |
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? ... |
| [04:27.195] |
I should have been a pair of ragged claws |
| [04:32.009] |
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas. |
| [04:35.781] |
And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully! |
| [04:42.385] |
Smoothed by long fingers, |
| [04:44.724] |
Asleep ... tired ... or it malingers, |
| [04:47.887] |
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me. |
| [04:52.071] |
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices, |
| [04:56.544] |
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis? |
| [05:00.625] |
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed, |
| [05:05.359] |
Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter, |
| [05:12.081] |
I am no prophet--and here's no great matter; |
| [05:16.323] |
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker, |
| [05:19.556] |
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, |
| [05:25.502] |
And in short, I was afraid. |
| [05:29.585] |
And would it have been worth it, after all, |
| [05:33.378] |
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea, |
| [05:37.264] |
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me, |
| [05:41.749] |
Would it have been worth while, |
| [05:44.017] |
To have bitten off the matter with a smile, |
| [05:46.580] |
To have squeezed the universe into a ball |
| [05:49.352] |
To roll it toward some overwhelming question, |
| [05:52.543] |
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead, |
| [05:57.175] |
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all“-- |
| [05:59.991] |
If one, settling a pillow by her head,** |
| [06:04.200] |
Should say: “That is not what I meant at all; |
| [06:09.126] |
That is not it, at all.“ |
| [06:11.516] |
And would it have been worth it, after all, |
| [06:16.665] |
Would it have been worth while, |
| [06:19.041] |
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets, |
| [06:23.939] |
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor-- |
| [06:30.595] |
And this, and so much more?-- |
| [06:34.692] |
It is impossible to say just what I mean I |
| [06:35.149] |
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen: |
| [06:40.291] |
Would it have been worth while |
| [06:43.739] |
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl, |
| [06:48.024] |
And turning toward the window, should say: |
| [06:51.757] |
“That is not it at all, |
| [06:53.996] |
That is not what I meant, at all.“ |
| [06:57.524] |
No I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be; |
| [07:04.680] |
Am an attendant lord, one that will do |
| [07:08.834] |
To swell a progress, start a scene or two, |
| [07:12.247] |
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool, |
| [07:16.584] |
Deferential, glad to be of use, |
| [07:19.298] |
Politic, cautious, and meticulous; |
| [07:22.425] |
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse; |
| [07:25.840] |
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous-- |
| [07:29.954] |
Almost, at times, the Fool. |
| [07:33.833] |
I grow old ... I grow old ... |
| [07:38.359] |
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. |
| [07:42.797] |
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach? |
| [07:47.823] |
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. |
| [07:52.679] |
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. |
| [07:57.788] |
I do not think that they will sing to me. |
| [08:02.462] |
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves |
| [08:06.975] |
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back |
| [08:10.421] |
When the wind blows the water white and black. |
| [08:14.474] |
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea |
| [08:18.963] |
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown |
| [08:23.966] |
Till human voices wake us, and we drown. |
