Poems (Eliot, 1920)/Gerontion
For other versions of this work, see Gerontion.
Gerontion
Thou hast nor youth nor ageBut as it were an after dinner sleepDreaming of both.
Here I am, an old man in a dry month,Being read to by a boy, waiting for rain.I was neither at the hot gatesNor fought in the warm rainNor knee deep in the salt marsh, heaving a cutlass,Bitten by flies, fought.My house is a decayed house,And the jew squats on the window sill, the owner,Spawned in some estaminet of Antwerp,Blistered in Brussels, patched and peeled in London.The goat coughs at night in the field overhead;Rocks, moss, stonecrop, iron, merds.The woman keeps the kitchen, makes tea,Sneezes at evening, poking the peevish gutter.
I an old man,A dull head among windy spaces.
Signs are taken for wonders. "We would see a sign":The word within a word, unable to speak a word, Swaddled with darkness. In the juvescence of the yearCame Christ the tiger
In depraved May, dogwood and chestnut, flowering judas,To be eaten, to be divided, to be drunkAmong whispers; by Mr. SilveroWith caressing hands, at LimogesWho walked all night in the next room;By Hakagawa, bowing among the Titians;By Madame de Tornquist, in the dark roomShifting the candles; Fraulein von Kulp.Who turned in the hall, one hand on the door. Vacant shuttlesWeave the wind. I have no ghosts,An old man in a draughty houseUnder a windy knob.
After such knowledge, what forgiveness? Think nowHistory has many cunning passages, contrived corridorsAnd issues, deceives with whispering ambitions,Guides us by vanities. Think nowShe gives when our attention is distractedAnd what she gives, gives with such supple confusionsThat the giving famishes the craving. Gives too lateWhat's not believed in, or if still believed,In memory only, reconsidered passion. Gives too soonInto weak hands, what's thought can be dispensed withTill the refusal propagates a fear. ThinkNeither fear nor courage saves us. Unnatural vices Are fathered by our heroism. VirtuesAre forced upon us by our impudent crimes.These tears are shaken from the wrath-bearing tree.
The tiger springs in the new year. Us he devours. Think at lastWe have not reached conclusion, when IStiffen in a rented house. Think at lastI have not made this show purposelesslyAnd it is not by any concitationOf the backward devils.I would meet you upon this honestly.I that was near your heart was removed therefromTo lose beauty in terror, terror in inquisition.I have lost my passion: why should I need to keep itSince what is kept must be adulterated?I have lost my sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch:How should I use it for your closer contact?
These with a thousand small deliberationsProtract the profit of their chilled delirium,Excite the membrane, when the sense has cooled,With pungent sauces, multiply varietyIn a wilderness of mirrors. What will the spider do,Suspend its operations, will the weevilDelay? De Bailhache, Fresca, Mrs. Cammel, whirledBeyond the circuit of the shuddering BearIn fractured atoms. Gull against the wind, in the windy straitsOf Belle Isle, or running on the Horn,White feathers in the snow, the Gulf claims, And an old man driven by the TradesTo a a sleepy corner.
Tenants of the house,Thoughts of a dry brain in a dry season.