The love song of J. Alfred Prufrock S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse . A persona che mai tornasse al mondo, . Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse. . Ma percioche giammai di questo fondo . Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero, . Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo. Let us go then, you and I, . When the evening is spread out against the sky . Like a patient etherized upon a table; . Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, . The muttering retreats . Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels . And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells: . Streets that follow like a tedious argument . Of insidious intent . To lead you to an overwhelming question ... . Oh, do not ask, “What is it?” . Let us go and make our visit. . In the room the women come and go . Talking of Michelangelo. . The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes, . The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes, . Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening, . Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains, . Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys, . Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap, . And seeing that it was a soft October night, . Curled once about the house, and fell asleep. . And indeed there will be time . For the yellow smoke that slides along the street, . Rubbing its back upon the window-panes; . There will be time, there will be time . To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet; . There will be time to murder and create, . And time for all the works and days of hands . That lift and drop a question on your plate; . Time for you and time for me, . And time yet for a hundred indecisions, . And for a hundred visions and revisions, . Before the taking of a toast and tea. . In the room the women come and go . Talking of Michelangelo. . And indeed there will be time . To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?” . Time to turn back and descend the stair, . With a bald spot in the middle of my hair — . (They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”) . My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin, . My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin — . (They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”) . Do I dare . Disturb the universe? . In a minute there is time . For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. . For I have known them all already, known them all: . Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, . I have measured out my life with coffee spoons; . I know the voices dying with a dying fall . Beneath the music from a farther room. . So how should I presume? . And I have known the eyes already, known them all— . The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase, . And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin, . When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall, . Then how should I begin . To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways? . And how should I presume? . And I have known the arms already, known them all— . Arms that are braceleted and white and bare . (But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!) . Is it perfume from a dress . That makes me so digress? . Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl. . And should I then presume? . And how should I begin? . Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets . And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes . Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? ... . I should have been a pair of ragged claws . Scuttling across the floors of silent seas. . And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully! . Smoothed by long fingers, . Asleep ... tired ... or it malingers, . Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me. . Should I, after tea and cakes and ices, . Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis? . But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed, . Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter, . I am no prophet — and here’s no great matter; . I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker, . And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, . And in short, I was afraid. . And would it have been worth it, after all, . After the cups, the marmalade, the tea, . Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me, . Would it have been worth while, . To have bitten off the matter with a smile, . To have squeezed the universe into a ball . To roll it towards some overwhelming question, . To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead, . Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”— . If one, settling a pillow by her head . Should say: “That is not what I meant at all; . That is not it, at all.” . And would it have been worth it, after all, . Would it have been worth while, . After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets, . After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor— . And this, and so much more?— . It is impossible to say just what I mean! . But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen: . Would it have been worth while . If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl, . And turning toward the window, should say: . “That is not it at all, . That is not what I meant, at all.” . No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be; . Am an attendant lord, one that will do . To swell a progress, start a scene or two, . Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool, . Deferential, glad to be of use, . Politic, cautious, and meticulous; . Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse; . At times, indeed, almost ridiculous— . Almost, at times, the Fool. . I grow old ... I grow old ... . I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. . Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach? . I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. . I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. . I do not think that they will sing to me. . I have seen them riding seaward on the waves . Combing the white hair of the waves blown back. When the wind blows the water white and black. . We have lingered in the chambers of the sea . By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown . Till human voices wake us, and we drown.