THE
WASTE
LAND
::
T. S.
ELIOT
POEM MAP ENDNOTES SOURCES ABOUT

The Waste Land

Lines 60-63

Unreal City,
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.

Eliot's Note

60. Cf. Baudelaire
“Fourmillante cité, cité pleine de rêves,
“Où le spectre en plein jour raccroche le passant.”

Context

From “Les Sept Vieillards” (“The Seven Old Men”), a poem in Charles Baudelaire's 1857 volume of poetry Fleurs du mal:

“Unreal city, city full of dreams,
Where ghosts in broad daylight cling to passsers-by.”

References