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I. The Burial of the Dead
April is the cruellest month, breeding
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Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
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Memory and desire, stirring
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Dull roots with spring rain.
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Winter kept us warm, covering
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Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
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A little life with dried tubers.
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With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
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And went on in sunlight, into the
Hofgarten,
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And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
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What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
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There is shadow under this red rock,
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(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
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And I will show you something different from either
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Your shadow at morning striding behind you
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Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
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“You gave me hyacinths first a year ago,
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“They called me the hyacinth girl.”
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—Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,
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Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
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Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
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Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,
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Looking into the heart of light, the silence.
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Had a bad cold, nevertheless
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Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe,
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I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring.
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Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone,
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Tell her I bring the horoscope myself:
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One must be so careful these days.
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To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours
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There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying, “Stetson!
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“You who were with me in the ships at
Mylae!
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“That corpse you planted last year in your garden,
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“Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?
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“Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?
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From which a golden Cupidon peeped out
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(Another hid his eyes behind his wing)
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Doubled the flames of sevenbranched candelabra
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Reflecting light upon the table as
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The glitter of her jewels rose to meet it,
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From satin cases poured in rich profusion;
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Huge sea-wood fed with copper
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Burned green and orange, framed by the coloured stone,
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In which sad light a carvèd dolphin swam.
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Above the antique mantel was displayed
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And other withered stumps of time
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Were told upon the walls; staring forms
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Leaned out, leaning, hushing the room enclosed.
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Footsteps shuffled on the stair.
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Under the firelight, under the brush, her hair
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Spread out in fiery points
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Glowed into words, then would be savagely still.
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“My nerves are bad to-night. Yes, bad. Stay with me.
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“Speak to me. Why do you never speak? Speak.
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“What are you thinking of? What thinking? What?
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“I never know what you are thinking. Think.”
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“What is that noise now? What is the wind doing?”
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“You know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember
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“What shall I do now? What shall I do?”
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“I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street
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“With my hair down, so. What shall we do tomorrow?
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“What shall we ever do?”
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When Lil's husband got demobbed, I said—
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I didn't mince my words, I said to her myself,
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Now Albert's coming back, make yourself a bit smart.
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He'll want to know what you done with that money he gave you
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To get yourself some teeth. He did, I was there.
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You have them all out, Lil, and get a nice set,
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He said, I swear, I can't bear to look at you.
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And no more can't I, I said, and think of poor Albert,
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He's been in the army four years, he wants a good time,
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And if you don't give it him, there's others will, I said.
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Oh is there, she said. Something o' that, I said.
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Then I'll know who to thank, she said, and give me a straight look.
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Hurry up please its time
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If you don't like it you can get on with it, I said.
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Others can pick and choose if you can't.
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But if Albert makes off, it won't be for lack of telling.
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You ought to be ashamed, I said, to look so antique.
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(And her only thirty-one.)
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I can't help it, she said, pulling a long face,
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It's them pills I took, to bring it off, she said.
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(She's had five already, and nearly died of young George.)
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The chemist said it would be all right, but I've never been the same.
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You are a proper fool, I said.
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Well, if Albert won't leave you alone, there it is, I said,
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What you get married for if you don't want children?
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Hurry up please its time
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Well, that Sunday Albert was home, they had a hot gammon,
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And they asked me in to dinner, to get the beauty of it hot—
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Hurry up please its time
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Hurry up please its time
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Goonight Bill. Goonight Lou. Goonight May. Goonight.
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Ta ta. Goonight. Goonight.
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The river's tent is broken: the last fingers of leaf
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Clutch and sink into the wet bank. The wind
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Crosses the brown land, unheard. The nymphs are departed.
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The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers,
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Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends
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Or other testimony of summer nights. The nymphs are departed.
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And their friends, the loitering heirs of city directors;
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Departed, have left no addresses.
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By the waters of
Leman I sat down and wept...
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Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song,
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Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or long.
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White bodies naked on the low damp ground
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And bones cast in a little low dry garret,
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Rattled by the rat's foot only, year to year.
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Jug jug jug jug jug jug
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Under the brown fog of a winter noon
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Mr. Eugenides, the
Smyrna merchant
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Asked me in demotic French
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Followed by a weekend at the Metropole.
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At the violet hour, when the eyes and back
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Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits
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Like a taxi throbbing waiting,
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Old man with wrinkled female breasts, can see
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Out of the window perilously spread
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Her drying combinations touched by the sun's last rays,
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On the divan are piled (at night her bed)
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Stockings, slippers, camisoles, and stays.
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I, Tiresias, old man with wrinkled dugs
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Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest—
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I too awaited the expected guest.
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He, the young man carbuncular, arrives,
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A small house agent's clerk, with one bold stare,
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One of the low on whom assurance sits
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As a silk hat on a
Bradford millionaire.
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The time is now propitious, as he guesses,
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The meal is ended, she is bored and tired,
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Endeavours to engage her in caresses
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Which still are unreproved, if undesired.
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Flushed and decided, he assaults at once;
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Exploring hands encounter no defense;
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His vanity requires no response,
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And makes a welcome of indifference.
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(And I Tiresias have foresuffered all
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Enacted on this same divan or bed;
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I who have sat by
Thebes below the wall
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And walked among the lowest of the dead.)
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Bestows one final patronising kiss,
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And gropes his way, finding the stairs unlit...
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She turns and looks a moment in the glass,
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Hardly aware of her departed lover;
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Her brain allows one half-formed thought to pass:
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“Well now that's done: and I'm glad it's over.”
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O City, City, I can sometimes hear
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The pleasant whining of a mandoline
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And a clatter and a chatter from within
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Where fishmen lounge at noon: where the walls
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Inexplicable splendor of Ionian white and gold.
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To leeward, swing on the heavy spar.
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Supine on the floor of a narrow canoe.”
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“My feet are at Moorgate, and my heart
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Under my feet. After the event
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He wept. He promised ‘a new start.’
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I made no comment. What should I resent?”
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The broken fingernails of dirty hands.
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My people humble people who expect
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Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
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Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell
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And the profit and loss.
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Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
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He passed the stages of his age and youth
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Entering the whirlpool.
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O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,
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Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.
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After the torchlight red on sweaty faces
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After the frosty silence in the gardens
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After the agony in stony places
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The shouting and the crying
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Prison and palace and reverberation
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Of thunder of spring over distant mountains
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He who was now living is now dead
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We who were living are now dying
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With a little patience
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Here is no water but only rock
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Rock and no water and the sandy road
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The road winding above among the mountains
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Which are mountains of rock without water
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If there were water we should stop and drink
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Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think
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Sweat is dry and feet are in the sand
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If there were only water amongst the rock
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Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit
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Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit
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There is not even silence in the mountains
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But dry sterile thunder without rain
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There is not even solitude in the mountains
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But red sullen faces sneer and snarl
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From doors of mudcracked houses
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If there were water
And no rock
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If there were the sound of water only
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But sound of water over a rock
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A woman drew her long black hair out tight
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And fiddled whisper music on those strings
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And bats with baby faces in the violet light
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Whistled, and beat their wings
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And crawled head downward down a blackened wall
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And upside down in air were towers
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Tolling reminiscent bells, that kept the hours
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And voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells.
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Only a cock stood on the rooftree
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In a flash of lightning. Then a damp gust
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Ganga was sunken, and the limp leaves
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Waited for rain, while the black clouds
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The jungle crouched, humped in silence.
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My friend, blood shaking my heart,
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The awful daring of a moment's surrender
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Which an age of prudence can never retract
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By this, and this only, we have existed
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Which is not to be found in our obituaries
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Damyata: The boat responded
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Gaily, to the hand expert with sail and oar
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The sea was calm, your heart would have responded
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Gaily, when invited, beating obedient
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London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down
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These fragments I have shored against my ruins
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Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.
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