Prelude III  - T.S. Eliot

​

You tossed a blanket from the bed, 

You lay upon your back, and waited; 

You dozed, and watched the night revealing 

The thousand sordid images 

Of which your soul was constituted; 

They flickered against the ceiling. 

And when all the world came back 

And the light crept up between the shutters 

And you heard the sparrows in the gutters, 

You had such a vision of the street 

As the street hardly understands; 

Sitting along the bed’s edge, where 

You curled the papers from your hair, 

Or clasped the yellow soles of feet 

In the palms of both soiled hands. 

Prelude IV  T.S.Eliot

​

His soul stretched tight across the skies 

That fade behind a city block, 

Or trampled by insistent feet 

At four and five and six o’clock; 

And short square fingers stuffing pipes, 

And evening newspapers, and eyes 

Assured of certain certainties, 

The conscience of a blackened street 

Impatient to assume the world. 

 

I am moved by fancies that are curled 

Around these images, and cling: 

The notion of some infinitely gentle 

Infinitely suffering thing. 

 

Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh; 

The worlds revolve like ancient women 

Gathering fuel in vacant lots.