An excerpt from
The Wasteland, which has a strange aptness this week.
"Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante, | |
Had a bad cold, nevertheless | |
Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe, | 45 |
With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she, | |
Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor, | |
(Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!) | |
Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks, | |
The lady of situations. | 50 |
Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel, | |
And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card, | |
Which is blank, is something he carries on his back, | |
Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find | |
The Hanged Man. Fear death by water. | 55 |
I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring. | |
Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone, | |
Tell her I bring the horoscope myself: | |
One must be so careful these days." |
But these are not, in fact, my favorite lines of this poem. My favorite lines are the following:
"She turns and looks a moment in the glass, | |
Hardly aware of her departed lover; | 250 |
Her brain allows one half-formed thought to pass: | |
'Well now that's done: and I'm glad it's over.' | |
When lovely woman stoops to folly and | |
Paces about her room again, alone, | |
She smoothes her hair with automatic hand, | 255 |
And puts a record on the gramophone." |
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