| [00:05.64] |
Let us go then, you and I, |
| [00:08.98] |
When the evening is spread out against the sky |
| [00:14.27] |
Like a patient etherized upon a table; |
| [00:19.64] |
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, |
| [00:23.91] |
The muttering retreats |
| [00:25.10] |
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels |
| [00:29.59] |
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells: |
| [00:34.63] |
Streets that follow like a tedious argument |
| [00:37.98] |
Of insidious intent |
| [00:41.42] |
To lead you to an overwhelming question ... |
| [00:46.32] |
Oh, do not ask, "What is it?" |
| [00:49.97] |
Let us go and make our visit. |
| [00:53.89] |
In the room the women come and go |
| [00:55.83] |
Talking of Michelangelo. |
| [01:00.52] |
The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes, |
| [01:05.75] |
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes, |
| [01:10.68] |
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening, |
| [01:14.70] |
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains, |
| [01:19.54] |
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys, |
| [01:24.29] |
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap, |
| [01:30.07] |
And seeing that it was a soft October night, |
| [01:34.45] |
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep. |
| [01:40.78] |
And indeed there will be time |
| [01:44.31] |
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street, |
| [01:47.90] |
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes; |
| [01:50.96] |
There will be time, there will be time |
| [01:54.64] |
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet; |
| [01:57.98] |
There will be time to murder and create, |
| [02:02.59] |
And time for all the works and days of hands |
| [02:06.16] |
That lift and drop a question on your plate; |
| [02:10.28] |
Time for you and time for me, |
| [02:13.72] |
And time yet for a hundred indecisions, |
| [02:17.08] |
And for a hundred visions and revisions, |
| [02:19.55] |
Before the taking of a toast and tea. |
| [02:23.92] |
In the room the women come and go |
| [02:26.09] |
Talking of Michelangelo. |
| [02:31.09] |
And indeed there will be time |
| [02:34.75] |
To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?" |
| [02:40.39] |
Time to turn back and descend the stair, |
| [02:43.95] |
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair— |
| [02:47.41] |
(They will say: "How his hair is growing thin!") |
| [02:51.19] |
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin, |
| [02:56.06] |
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin-- |
| [03:03.49] |
(They will say: "But how his arms and legs are thin!") |
| [03:10.05] |
Do I dare |
| [03:10.66] |
Disturb the universe? |
| [03:15.44] |
In a minute there is time |
| [03:17.91] |
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. |
| [03:24.76] |
For I have known them all already, known them all: |
| [03:29.90] |
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, |
| [03:34.12] |
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons; |
| [03:38.68] |
I know the voices dying with a dying fall |
| [03:42.88] |
Beneath the music from a farther room. |
| [03:48.74] |
So how should I presume? |
| [03:52.60] |
And I have known the eyes already, known them all— |
| [03:57.50] |
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase, |
| [04:00.71] |
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin, |
| [04:04.29] |
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall, |
| [04:08.04] |
Then how should I begin |
| [04:10.44] |
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways? |
| [04:13.67] |
And how should I presume? |
| [04:16.55] |
And I have known the arms already, known them all— |
| [04:20.32] |
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare |
| [04:24.21] |
(But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!) |
| [04:28.89] |
Is it perfume from a dress |
| [04:32.10] |
That makes me so digress? |
| [04:36.04] |
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl. |
| [04:41.16] |
And should I then presume? |
| [04:44.27] |
And how should I begin? |
| [04:49.64] |
Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets |
| [04:54.09] |
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes |
| [04:57.00] |
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? ... |
| [05:05.07] |
I should have been a pair of ragged claws |
| [05:07.00] |
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas. |
| [05:13.28] |
And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully! |
| [05:17.61] |
Smoothed by long fingers, |
| [05:21.34] |
Asleep ... tired ... or it malingers, |
| [05:28.43] |
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me. |
| [05:33.66] |
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices, |
| [05:37.52] |
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis? |
| [05:42.43] |
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed, |
| [05:47.48] |
Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter, |
| [05:53.42] |
I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter; |
| [05:58.79] |
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker, |
| [06:02.68] |
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, |
| [06:10.29] |
And in short, I was afraid. |
| [06:15.93] |
And would it have been worth it, after all, |
| [06:18.98] |
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea, |
| [06:21.64] |
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me, |
| [06:25.43] |
Would it have been worth while, |
| [06:27.87] |
To have bitten off the matter with a smile, |
| [06:30.58] |
To have squeezed the universe into a ball |
| [06:33.00] |
To roll it toward some overwhelming question, |
| [06:35.88] |
To say: "I am Lazarus, come from the dead, |
| [06:38.42] |
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all"— |
| [06:43.15] |
If one, settling a pillow by her head, |
| [06:45.66] |
Should say: "That is not what I meant at all; |
| [06:51.17] |
That is not it, at all." |
| [06:54.97] |
And would it have been worth it, after all, |
| [06:58.24] |
Would it have been worth while, |
| [07:00.29] |
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets, |
| [07:03.95] |
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor— |
| [07:10.23] |
And this, and so much more?— |
| [07:14.50] |
It is impossible to say just what I mean! |
| [07:20.06] |
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen: |
| [07:25.02] |
Would it have been worth while |
| [07:27.33] |
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl, |
| [07:31.68] |
And turning toward the window, should say: |
| [07:35.05] |
"That is not it at all, |
| [07:38.48] |
That is not what I meant, at all." |
| [07:42.99] |
No I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be; |
| [07:47.68] |
Am an attendant lord, one that will do |
| [07:51.47] |
To swell a progress, start a scene or two, |
| [07:54.80] |
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool, |
| [08:05.39] |
Deferential, glad to be of use, |
| [08:09.17] |
Politic, cautious, and meticulous; |
| [08:12.98] |
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse; |
| [08:16.76] |
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous— |
| [08:20.92] |
Almost, at times, the Fool. |
| [08:27.42] |
I grow old ... I grow old ... |
| [08:34.77] |
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. |
| [08:39.41] |
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach? |
| [08:46.00] |
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. |
| [08:51.61] |
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. |
| [08:58.65] |
I do not think that they will sing to me. |
| [09:04.49] |
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves |
| [09:09.09] |
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back |
| [09:13.68] |
When the wind blows the water white and black. |
| [09:21.16] |
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea |
| [09:24.33] |
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown |
| [09:30.44] |
Till human voices wake us, and we drown. |
