(Untitled)

[anthraciteowl]

This is the way the world ends.
This is the way the world ends.
This is the way the world ends,
Not with a bang, but with a whimper.

~T.S. Eliot, "The Hollow Men"

Comments

[quiet__tiger]

That quote always creeps me out because it's printed in the beginning of "On the Beach" and makes me think of nuclear disaster.

[anthraciteowl]

I love that last stanza. The awful, inevitable repition appeals to me.

I've never seen "On the Beach", though. I don't know what it is.

[quiet__tiger]

It's a book (and several movies based on it) about the last survivors of a nuclear Holocaust and how they live their last days with radiation sickness. Horrifying.

[anthraciteowl]

Thanks. It does sound positively horrifying.

[aravistarkheena]

This is my favorite poem. Ever. Hands down. It was years before I could read it without crying.

Is it like this
In death’s other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.

[anthraciteowl]

Yes, I love it. It and "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" are my favorite poems.

LET us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised 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.