{"id":573,"date":"2010-06-24T02:43:51","date_gmt":"2010-06-24T02:43:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/?p=573"},"modified":"2010-06-24T02:43:51","modified_gmt":"2010-06-24T02:43:51","slug":"rhapsody-on-a-windy-night-by-t-s-eliot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/rhapsody-on-a-windy-night-by-t-s-eliot\/","title":{"rendered":"Rhapsody on a Windy Night by T. S. Eliot"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/h1>\n

Rhapsody on a Windy Night<\/h1>\n

by T. S. Eliot<\/em><\/p>\n

Twelve o’clock.
\nAlong the reaches of the street
\nHeld in a lunar synthesis,
\nWhispering lunar incantations
\nDisolve the floors of memory
\nAnd all its clear relations,
\nIts divisions and precisions,
\nEvery street lamp that I pass
\nBeats like a fatalistic drum,
\nAnd through the spaces of the dark
\nMidnight shakes the memory
\nAs a madman shakes a dead geranium.<\/p>\n

Half-past one,
\nThe street lamp sputtered,
\nThe street lamp muttered,
\nThe street lamp said,
\n“Regard that woman
\nWho hesitates toward you in the light of the door
\nWhich opens on her like a grin.
\nYou see the border of her dress
\nIs torn and stained with sand,
\nAnd you see the corner of her eye
\nTwists like a crooked pin.”<\/p>\n

The memory throws up high and dry
\nA crowd of twisted things;
\nA twisted branch upon the beach
\nEaten smooth, and polished
\nAs if the world gave up
\nThe secret of its skeleton,
\nStiff and white.
\nA broken spring in a factory yard,
\nRust that clings to the form that the strength has left
\nHard and curled and ready to snap.<\/p>\n

Half-past two,
\nThe street-lamp said,
\n“Remark the cat which flattens itself in the gutter,
\nSlips out its tongue
\nAnd devours a morsel of rancid butter.”
\nSo the hand of the child, automatic,
\nSlipped out and pocketed a toy that was running along
\nthe quay.
\nI could see nothing behind that child’s eye.
\nI have seen eyes in the street
\nTrying to peer through lighted shutters,
\nAnd a crab one afternoon in a pool,
\nAn old crab with barnacles on his back,
\nGripped the end of a stick which I held him.<\/p>\n

Half-past three,
\nThe lamp sputtered,
\nThe lamp muttered in the dark.<\/p>\n

The lamp hummed:
\n“Regard the moon,
\nLa lune ne garde aucune rancune,
\nShe winks a feeble eye,
\nShe smiles into corners.
\nShe smooths the hair of the grass.
\nThe moon has lost her memory.
\nA washed-out smallpox cracks her face,
\nHer hand twists a paper rose,
\nThat smells of dust and old Cologne,
\nShe is alone With all the old nocturnal smells
\nThat cross and cross across her brain.
\nThe reminiscence comes
\nOf sunless dry geraniums
\nAnd dust in crevices,
\nSmells of chestnuts in the streets
\nAnd female smells in shuttered rooms
\nAnd cigarettes in corridors
\nAnd cocktail smells in bars.”<\/p>\n

The lamp said,
\n“Four o’clock,
\nHere is the number on the door.
\nMemory!
\nYou have the key,
\nThe little lamp spreads a ring on the stair,
\nMount.
\nThe bed is open; the tooth-brush hangs on the wall,
\nPut your shoes at the door, sleep, prepare for life.”<\/p>\n

The last twist of the knife.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rhapsody on a Windy Night by T. S. Eliot Twelve o’clock. Along the reaches of the street Held in a lunar synthesis, Whispering lunar incantations Disolve the floors of memory And all its clear relations, Its divisions and precisions, Every street lamp that I pass Beats like a fatalistic drum, And through the spaces of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[84,103],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1900s","category-eliot"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}