The Waste Land (TS Eliot) read by Alec Guinness

April is the cruelest month breeding lilacs out of the dead and desire stirring dull roots with spring rain winter kept us warm covering earth and forgetful snow feeding a little life with dried tubers a summer surprised us coming over the stand Becca's a with a shower of rain we stopped in the colonnade and went on in sunlight into the half garden and drank coffee and talked for an hour jinguk ina busan thomas littlenecks - and when we were children staying at the Archduke's my cousins he took me out on a sled and I was frightened he said Mary Mary hold on tight and down he went in the mountains there you feel free I read much of the night and go south in the winter what are the roots that clutch what branches grow out of this stony of rubbish son of man you cannot say or guess for you know only a heap of broken images where the Sun beats and the dead tree gives no shelter the cricket no relief and the dry stone no sand of water only there is shadow under this red rock come in under the shadow of this red rock and I will show you something different from either your shadow at morning striding behind you or your shadow at evening rising to meet you I will show you fear in a handful of dust fresh faith divin'd the high Matsu my nearish kins full vilest new you gave me hyacinths first a year ago they called me the hyacinth girl it when we came back late from the hyacinth garden your arms full and your hair wet I could not speak and my eyes failed I was either living or dead and I knew nothing looking into the heart of light the silence third won't lay dismay Madam's a sorceress famous clairvoyant had a bad cold nevertheless is known to be the wisest woman in Europe with a wicked pack of cards here said she is your card the Drowned Phoenician sailor those are pearls that were his eyes look here his belladonna and the Lady of the rocks the Lady of situations here is the man with three staves and here are the wheel and here is the one-eyed merchant and this card which is blank is something he carries on his back which I am forbidden to see I do not find the hanged man I fear death by water as he crowds of people walking around a ring thank you if you see dear mrs. H return tell her I bring the horoscope myself one must be so careful these days 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 sigh short and infrequent were exhaled and each man fixed his eyes before his feet flowed up the hill and Don King William Street - where's Aunt Mary will not kept the eyes with a dead son Don the final stroke of nine there I saw one I knew and stopped him crying stetson you who were with me in the ships at my Lea that corpse you planted last year in your garden has it begun to sprout will it bloom this year or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed Oh keep the hogs are hints that's friend to men or with his nails he'll dig it up again you hypocrite Lecter more solemn more frere the chair she sat in like a burnished throne glowed on the marble where the glass held up by standards wrought with fruited vines from which a golden Cupidon peeped out another hid his eyes behind his wing double the flames of seven-branched candelabra reflecting light upon the table as the glitter of her jewels rose to meet it from set in cases poured in rich profusion in vials of ivory and colored glass unstop are left her strange synthetic perfumes unguent powdered or liquid troubled confused and drowned the sense in odors stirred by the air that freshened from the window these ascended in fattening the prolonged candle flames flung their smoke into the lake we area stirring the pattern on the coffered ceiling huge sea wood fed with copper burned green and orange framed by the colored stone in which sad light to carve it dolphin swam above the antique mantel was displayed as though a window gave upon the Sylvan scene the change of Philemon by the barbarous King so rudely forced yet there the nightingale filled all the desert with inviolable voice and still she cried and still the world pursues jug jug to dirty ears and other withered stumps of time were told upon the walls staring forms leaned out leaning hushing the room in closed footsteps shuffled on the stair under the firelight under the brush her hair spread out in fiery points load into words then would be savagely still my nerves are bad tonight yes bad stay with me speak to me why do you never speak speak what are you thinking of what thinking what I never know what you're thinking think I think we're in rats alley where the dead men lost their bones what is that noise the wind under the door what is that noise now what is the wind doing nothing again nothing do you know nothing do you see nothing do you remember nothing I remember those opposed that where his eyes are alive or not is there nothing in your head oh that Shakespearean rag it's so elegant so intelligent what shall I do now what should I do I shall rush out as I am and walk the street with my hair down so what should we do tomorrow what shall we ever do the hot water at em and if it rains the closed car at 4:00 and we shall play a game of chess pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a knock upon the door when Lil's husband got demobbed I said I didn't mince my words I said to her myself I up please it's time now Albert's coming back make yourself a bit smart he'll want to know what you done with that money he gave you to get yourself some teeth he did I was there you have them all out lil and get a nice set he said I swear I can't bear to look at you and no more can't I I said and think of poor Albert he's been in the Army for years he wants a good time and if you don't give it him there's others will I said oh is there she said something that I said then I'll know who to thank she said and give me a straight look other up please it's time if you don't like it you can get on with it I said others can pick and choose if you can't the de valvert makes off it won't be for lack of telling you ought to be ashamed I said to look so antique and her only 31 I can't help it she said pulling a long face it's them pills I took to bring it off she said she said five already nearly died of young George the chemist said it would be alright but I've never been the same you are a proper fool I said well if Albert won't leave you alone there it is I said what you get married for if you don't want children hurry up please it's time well that's Sunday Albert was home and they had a hot gammon and they asked me into dinner to get the beauty of it hot hurry up please it's time oh no please it's time goodnight bill than I love goodnight Mae good night Tata good night good night good night ladies good night sweet ladies good night good night the reverse tent is broken the last fingers of leaf clutch and sink into the wet Bank the wind crosses the brown land unheard the nymphs are departed sweet Thames run softly till I end my song the river bears no empty bottles sandwich papers silk handkerchiefs cardboard boxes cigarette ends or other testimony of summer nights the nymphs are departed and their friends the loitering heirs of City directors departed have left no addresses by the waters of Lehmann I sat down and wept sweet Thames run softly and I end my song sweet Thames run softly for I speak not loud or long but at my back in a cold blast I hear the rattle of the bones and chuckles spread from ear to ear a rat crept softly through the vegetation dragging its slimy belly on the bank while I was fishing in the dull canal on a winter evening run behind the gas house musing upon the king my brother's Rick and on the King my father's death before him white bodies naked on the low damp ground and bones cast in a little low dry Garret rattled by the rats foot only year to year but at my back from time to time I hear the sound of horns and motors which saw brings Sweeney Aida mrs. Porter in the spring oh the moon shone bright on mrs. Porter and on her daughter they washed their feet in soda water hey all sieve wardo for santander la Coupole click click chug chug chug chug chug chug so rudely horse Teru unreal city under the brown fog of a winter noon mr. Eugenia days the Smyrna merchant unshaven with a pocketful of currants CIF London documents at site asked me in demotic French to luncheon at the Cannon Street Hotel followed by a weekend at the Metropole at the violet are when the eyes and back turn upward from the desk when the human engine waits like a taxi throbbing waiting i Terry see as though blind throbbing between two lives old man with wrinkled female breasts can see at the violet are the evening our that strives Homewood and brings the Sailor home from see the typist home at tea time clears her breakfast lights a stove and lays out food in tins out of the window perilously spread her drying combinations touched by the sun's last rays on the divan are piled at night her bed stockings slippers camisoles and stays I tear eazy-e's old man with wrinkled Doug's perceived the seam and foretold the rest I too awaited the expected guests he the young man cabin killer arrives a small has agents clad with one bold stare one of the low on whom assurance sits as a silk hat on a Bradford millionaire the time is now propitious as he guesses the meal is ended she is bored and tired endeavours to engage her in caresses which still are unrepresented decided he assaults at once exploring hands encounter no defense his vanity requires no response and makes a welcome of indifference and I had easier for suffered all enacted on the same divan or bed I who have said by thebes below the wall and walked among the lowest of the Dead bestows one final patronizing kiss and gropes his way finding the stairs unlit she turns and looks a moment in the glass hardly aware of her departed lover her brain allows one half-formed thought to pass well now that's done and I'm glad it's over when lovely woman Stoops to Folly and places about her room again alone she smooths her hair with automatic hand and puts a record on the gramophone this music crept by me upon the waters and along the Strand of Queen Victoria Street Oh City City I can sometimes hear beside a public bar in lower Tim Street the pleasant whining of a mandolin and a clatter and a chatter from within where fishman lounge at noon where the walls of magnus mater hole inexplicable splendor of Ionian white and gold the river sweats soylent ah the barges drift with the turning tide red sails wide to Lords swing on the heavy spa the barges wash drifting logs down Greenwich reach past the Isle of Dogs y la la laaa la la la la la la la Elizabeth and Lester beating halls the stern was formed a gilded shell red and gold the brisk swell rippled both shores southwest wind carried downstream the peal of bells white towers Y&R nya voila la la la la trams and dusty trees Highbury bore me Richmond and Q undid me my Richmond I raised my knees supine on the floor of an era Kanoe my feet are at Moorgate in my heart under my feet after the event he wept he promised a new start I made no comment what should I resent on Margit sands I can connect nothing with nothing the broken fingernails of dirty hands my people humble people who expect nothing la la to Carthage then I came burning burning burning burning Oh Lord thou lookest me out Oh Lord the pluck is burning fleebus the phoenicians a fortnight dead forgot the cry of gulls and the deep sea swell and the profit and loss a current under sea picked his bones in whispers as he rose and fell he passed the stages of his age and youth entering the whirlpool Gentile or Jew oh you who turned the wheel and look to windward consider flea bass who was once handsome and tall as you after the torchlight Red Dawn sweaty faces after the frosty silence in the gardens after the agony in stony places the shouting and the crying prison and palace and reverberation of thunder of spring over distant mountains he who was living is now dead we who were living on our dying with a little patience here is no water but only rock rock and no water and the sandy Road the road winding above among the mountains which are mountains of rock without water if there were water we should stop and drink amongst the rock one cannot stop or think sweat is dry and heated in the sand if there were only water amongst the rock dead mountain mouth of Carius teeth that cannot spit here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit there is not even silence in the mountains but dry sterile thunder without rain there is not even solitude in the mountains but red sullen faces sneer and smile from doors of mud cracked houses if there were water and no rock if there were rock and also water and water a spring a pool among the rock if there were the sound of water only not the sacada and dry grass singing but sound of war over a rock where the hermit thrush sings in the pine trees drip drop drip drop drop drop drop but there is no water who is the third who walks always beside you when I can't there are only you and I together but when I look ahead up the white road there is always another one walking beside you gliding wrapped in a brown mantle hooded I do not know whether a man or a woman but who is that on the other side of you what is that sound high in the air murmur of maternal lamentation who are those hooded hordes swarming over endless Plains stumbling in cracked earth ringed by the flat horizon only what is the city over the mountains cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air falling towers Jerusalem Athens Alexandria Vienna London unreal a woman drew her long black hair out tight and fiddled whisper music on those strings and that's with baby faces in the violet light whistled and beat their wings and crawled head downward down a blackened wall and upside down in air were towers tolling reminiscent bells that kept the eyes and voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells in this decayed hole among the mountains in the faint moonlight the grass is singing over the tumble graves about of the chapel there is the empty chapel only the winds home it has no windows and the door swings dry bones can harm no one only a stood on the roof tree Cocorico Cocorico in a flash of lightning then a damp gust bringing rain Ganga was sunken and the limp leaves waited for rain while the black clouds gathered far distant over him Avant the jungle crouched humped in silence then the Thunder stroke da data what have we give my friend blood shaking my heart the awful daring of a moment's surrender which an age of prudence can never retract by this and this only we have existed which is not to be found in our obituaries or in memories draped by the beneficent spider or under seals broken by the lean solicitor in our empty rooms da diagram I've heard the key turn in the door once and turn once only we think of the key each in his prison thinking of the key each confirms a prison only at nightfall his serial rumors revived for a moment a broken Coriolanus da da Matta the boat responded gaily to the hand expert with sail and all the sea was calm your heart would have responded gaily when invited beating obediently to controlling hands I sat upon the shore fishing with the added plane behind me shall I at least set my lands in order London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down voice echoes Enel so shockingly afina quando fee abou t kelly dawn Oh swallow swallow LeBron's de Keeton Allah to a bully these fragments I have shored against my ruins why then I'll fit you Geronimo's mad again data diagram dammit Shanti Shanti Shanti you

Channel: modelsandjuniors

Views: 326,016

Rating: 4.9239864 out of 5

Keywords: Alec Guinness, TS Eliot, The Waste Land, Ludifex, BBC, 1958

Id: Hcj4G45F9pw

Length: 24min 38sec (1478 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 14 2016