III. THE FIRE SERMON

THE river's 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 Leman I sat down and wept...  

Sweet Thames, run softly till 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 chuckle spread from ear to ear. 

"The illusion to Spencer's Prothalamion is linked, moreover, with a biblical allusion to the sorrow of the Israelites while captive in Bbylon. By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept...".

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 round behind the gashouse

Musing upon the king my brother's wreck  

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 rat's foot only, year to year.

But at my back from time to time I hear  

The sound of horns and motors, which shall bring  

Sweeney to Mrs. Porter in the spring.  

O the moon shone bright on Mrs. Porter  

And on her daughter  

They wash their feet in soda water  

Et, O ces voix d'enfants, chantant dans la coupole!  

Twit twit twit  

Jug jug jug jug jug jug  

So rudely forc'd.

Tereu

 "The poem is an effort to focus on inclusive human consciousness. The introduction of Tiresias, in other words, signifies that the poem present not particular experience but the human experience".

Unreal City  

Under the brown fog of a winter noon  

Mr. Eugenides, the Smyrna merchant  

Unshaven, with a pocket full of currants 

C.i.f. London: documents at sight,  

Asked me in demotic French  

To luncheon at the Cannon Street Hotel  

Followed by a weekend at the Metropole.

At the violet hour, when the eyes and back 

Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits  

Like a taxi throbbing waiting,  

I Tiresias, though blind, throbbing between two lives,  

Old man with wrinkled female breasts, can see  

At the violet hour, the evening hour that strives

 "The Fire Sermon" also points to a pattern of music which, like the nightingale's song arises from desire"

Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea,

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 unreproved, if undesired.  

Flushed and decided, he assaults at once;

Exploring hands encounter no defence;

His vanity requires no response,  

And makes a welcome of indifference.  

(And I Tiresias have foresuffered all  

Enacted on this same divan or bed;  

I who have sat by Thebes below the wall

And walked among the lowest of the dead.)  

Bestows on final patronising kiss,  

And gropes his way, finding the stairs unlit...   

She turns and looks a moment in the glass,  

Hardly aware of her departed lover;

 "In "The Fire Sermon" the narrators emotional responses includes more kinds of feeling and suggest more ways of reacting to the world than horror and withdrawal. His thoughts are linked to those of his earlier appearances by recurring images of rats, hidden bones, death by water, and Philomela".

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  

Paces about her room again, alone,   

She smoothes her hair with automatic hand,  

And puts a record on the gramophone.  

'This music crept by me upon the waters'  

And along the Strand, up Queen Victoria Street.  

O City city, I can sometimes hear  

Beside a public bar in Lower Thames Street,

The pleasant whining of a mandoline  

And a clatter and a chatter from within  

Where fishmen lounge at noon: where the walls  

Of Magnus Martyr hold  

Inexplicable splendour of Ionian white and gold.

 The river sweats  

      Oil and tar  

      The barges drift  

      With the turning tide  

      Red sails

      Wide  

      To leeward, swing on the heavy spar.  

      The barges wash  

      Drifting logs  

      Down Greenwich reach  

      Past the Isle of Dogs.  

            Weialala leia  

            Wallala leialala  

      Elizabeth and Leicester  

      Beating oars

      The stern was formed  

      A gilded shell  

      Red and gold  

      The brisk swell  

      Rippled both shores  

      Southwest wind  

      Carried down stream  

      The peal of bells  

      White towers  

            Weialala leia

            Wallala leialala  

'Trams and dusty trees.  

Highbury bore me. Richmond and Kew  

Undid me. By Richmond I raised my knees  

Supine on the floor of a narrow canoe.'

'My feet are at Moorgate, and my heart  

Under my feet. After the event  

He wept. He promised "a new start".  

I made no comment. What should I resent?'  

'On Margate 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  

O Lord Thou pluckest me out  

O Lord Thou pluckest

burning