FIVE-FINGER EXERCISES

(Continuing our study of T. S. Eliot, I would like to post these lines for my dear apprentice, +Franziska, who has expressed an interest in them...)

                   I. Lines to a Persian Cat

The songsters of the air repair
To the green fields of Russell Square.
Beneath the trees there is no ease
For the dull brain, the sharp desires
And the quick eyes of Woolly Bear.
There is no relief but in grief.
O when will the creaking heart cease?
When will the broken chair give ease?
Why will the summer day delay?
WHEN will Time flow away?

                       II.  Lines to a Yorkshire Terrier

In a brown field stood a tree
And the tree was crookt and dry.
In a black sky, from a green cloud
Natural forces shriek'd aloud,
Screamed, rattled, muttered endlessly.
Little dog was safe and warm
Under a cretonne eiderdown,
Yet the field was cracked and brown
And the tree was cramped and dry.
Pollicle dogs and cats all must
Jellicle cats and dogs all must
Like undertakers, come to dust.
Here a little dog I pause
Heaving up my prior paws,
Pause, and sleep endlessly.

                    III.  Lines to a Duck in the Park

The long light shakes across the lake,
The forces of the morning quake,
The dawn is slant across the lawn,
Here is no eft or mortal snake
But only sluggish duck and drake.
I have seen the morning shine,
I have had the Bread and Wine,
Let the feathered mortals take
That which is their mortal due,
Pinching bread and finger too,
Easier had than squirming worm;
For I know, and so should you
That soon the enquiring worm shall try
Our well-preserved complacency.

                  IV.  Lines to Ralph Hodgson Esqre.

How delightful to meet Mr. Hodgson!
                   (Everyone wants to know HIM)--
With his musical sound
And his Baskerville Hound
Which, just at a word from his master
Will follow you faster and faster
And tear you limb from limb.
How delightful to meet Mr. Hodgson!
Who is worshipped by all waitresses
(They regard him as something apart)
While on his palate fine he presses
The juice of the gooseberry tart.
How delightful to meet Mr. Hodgson!
                 (Everyone wants to know HIM).
He has 999 canaries
And round his head finches and fairies
In jubilant rapture skim.
How delightful to meet Mr. Hodgson!
                (Everyone wants to meet HIM).

             V.  Lines for Cuscuscaraway and Mirza Murad Ali Beg

How unpleasant to meet Mr. Eliot!
With his features of clerical cut,
And his brow so grim
And his mouth so prim
And his conversation, so nicely
Restricted to What Precisely
And If and Perhaps and But.
How unpleasant to meet Mr. Eliot!
With a bobtail cur
In a coat of fur
And a porpentine cat
And a wopsical hat:
How unpleasant to meet Mr. Eliot!
                (Whether his mouth be open or shut).

T. S. Eliot
1888-1965
Rest well, my Master

(Thomas Stearns Eliot), 1888- 1965, American- British poet and critic, b. St Louis, Mo. One of the most distinguished literary figures of the 20th cent., T.S. Eliot won the 1948 Nobel Prize in Literature.
He studied at Harvard, the Sorbonne, and Oxford.
In 1914 he established residence in London and in 1927 became a British subject.
After working as a teacher and a bank clerk he began a publishing career, he was assistant editor of the Egoist (1917- 19) and edited by own quarterly, the Criterion (1922-39). In 1925 he was employed by the publishing house of Faber and Faber, eventually becoming one of its directors.

-For more Information,

And for few more poems of TS Eliot

Please visit:

http://www.bartleby.com/people/eliot-th.html


-And for TS Eliot's famous Cat poems:

http://www.geocities.com/Petsburgh/1041/ca...t/catpoems.html


.... Enjoy!!!!!!  -don't 'read'   Enjoy!!!!!!  :-* :-* :-* :-* :-*