If we submit he will reduce us to order.

So, last week should have been a T.S. Eliot week, I think. I'm trying to avoid repeating poems from previous years, so The wasteland is excluded. I think it might be my favorite April poem, though. Also, check out this great audio of Eliot reading, The Wasteland . So, apparently the Blogger spellcheck doesn't recognize woodthrush. 'Garboard strake' I understand, but 'woodthrush'?

Marina

Quis hic locus, quae regio, quae mundi plaga?
What seas what shores what gray rocks and what islands
What water lapping the bow
And scent of pine and the woodthrush singing through the fog
What images return
O my daughter.

Those who sharpen the tooth of the dog, meaning
Death
Those who glitter with the glory of the hummingbird, meaning
Death
Those who sit in the sty of contentment, meaning
Death

Are become unsubstantial, reduced by a wind,
A breath of pine, and the woodsong fog
By this grace dissolved in place

What is this face, less clear and clearer
The pulse in the arm, less strong and stronger-
Given or lent? more distant than stars and nearer than the eye

Whispers and small laughter between leaves and hurrying feet
Under sleep, where all the waters meet.

Bowsprit cracked with ice and painted with heat.I made this, I have forgotten
And remember.
The rigging weak and the canvas rotten
Between one June and another September.
Made this unknowing, half conscious, unknown, my own.
The garboard strake leaks, the seams need caulking.
This form, this face, this life
Living to live in a world of time beyond me; let me
Resign my life for this life, my speech for that unspoken,
The awakened, lips parted, the hope, the new ships.

What seas what shore what granite island towards my timbers
And woodthrush calling through the fog
My daughter.
1930

1. "What place is this, what country, what region of the world?" Seneca's Hercules Furens