Sweeney Erect Poem by T. S. Eliot

Poetry from Poems by T. S. Eliot.

Poems by T. S. Eliot 1920

T. S. Eliot – Sweeney Erect Poem

And the trees about me,
Let them be dry and leafless; let the rocks
Groan with continual surges; and behind me
Make all a desolation. Look, look, wenches!

Paint me a cavernous waste shore
Cast in the unstilted Cyclades,
Paint me the bold anfractuous rocks
Faced by the snarled and yelping seas.

Display me Aeolus above
Reviewing the insurgent gales
Which tangle Ariadne’s hair
And swell with haste the perjured sails.

Morning stirs the feet and hands
(Nausicaa and Polypheme),
Gesture of orang-outang
Rises from the sheets in steam.

This withered root of knots of hair
Slitted below and gashed with eyes,
This oval O cropped out with teeth:
The sickle motion from the thighs

Jackknifes upward at the knees
Then straightens out from heel to hip
Pushing the framework of the bed
And clawing at the pillow slip.

Sweeney addressed full length to shave
Broadbottomed, pink from nape to base,
Knows the female temperament
And wipes the suds around his face.

(The lengthened shadow of a man
Is history, said Emerson
Who had not seen the silhouette
Of Sweeney straddled in the sun).

Tests the razor on his leg
Waiting until the shriek subsides.
The epileptic on the bed
Curves backward, clutching at her sides.

The ladies of the corridor
Find themselves involved, disgraced,
Call witness to their principles
And deprecate the lack of taste

Observing that hysteria
Might easily be misunderstood;
Mrs. Turner intimates
It does the house no sort of good.

But Doris, towelled from the bath,
Enters padding on broad feet,
Bringing sal volatile
And a glass of brandy neat.

Stormy Sea Painting by John Constable

Stormy Sea Painting by John Constable

Poems by T. S. Eliot

T. S. Eliot – Gerontion Poem
T. S. Eliot – Burbank with a Baedeker : Bleistein with a Cigar Poem
T. S. Eliot – Sweeney Erect Poem
T. S. Eliot – A Cooking Egg Poem
T. S. Eliot – Le Directeur Poem
T. S. Eliot – Mélange adultère de tout Poem
T. S. Eliot – Lune de Miel Poem
T. S. Eliot – The Hippopotamus Poem
T. S. Eliot – Dans le Restaurant Poem
T. S. Eliot – Whispers of Immortality Poem
T. S. Eliot – Mr. Eliot’s Sunday Morning Service Poem
T. S. Eliot – Sweeney Among the Nightingales Poem
T. S. Eliot – The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock Poem
T. S. Eliot – Portrait of a Lady Poem
T. S. Eliot – Preludes Poem
T. S. Eliot – Rhapsody on a Windy Night Poem
T. S. Eliot – Morning at the Window Poem
T. S. Eliot – The Boston Evening Transcript Poem
T. S. Eliot – Aunt Helen Poem
T. S. Eliot – Cousin Nancy Poem
T. S. Eliot – Mr. Apollinax Poem
T. S. Eliot – Hysteria Poem
T. S. Eliot – Conversation Galante Poem
T. S. Eliot – La Figlia Che Pianga Poem