The Hollow Men

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By T. S. Eliot, read by C. Montgomery Burns • Recorded at The Tomb, New Haven, Connecticut, 1926 • • The Hollow Men • Mistah Kurtz-he dead • A penny for the Old Guy • • I • We are the hollow men • We are the stuffed men • Leaning together • Headpiece filled with straw. Alas! • Our dried voices, when • We whisper together • Are quiet and meaningless • As wind in dry grass • Or rats' feet over broken glass • In our dry cellar • • Shape without form, shade without colour, • Paralysed force, gesture without motion; • • Those who have crossed • With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom • Remember us-if at all-not as lost • Violent souls, but only • As the hollow men • The stuffed men. • • II • Eyes I dare not meet in dreams • In death's dream kingdom • These do not appear: • There, the eyes are • Sunlight on a broken column • There, is a tree swinging • And voices are • In the wind's singing • More distant and more solemn • Than a fading star. • • Let me be no nearer • In death's dream kingdom • Let me also wear • Such deliberate disguises • Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves • In a field • Behaving as the wind behaves • No nearer- • • Not that final meeting • In the twilight kingdom • • III • This is the dead land • This is cactus land • Here the stone images • Are raised, here they receive • The supplication of a dead man's hand • Under the twinkle of a fading star. • • 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. • • IV • The eyes are not here • There are no eyes here • In this valley of dying stars • In this hollow valley • This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms • • In this last of meeting places • We grope together • And avoid speech • Gathered on this beach of the tumid river • • Sightless, unless • The eyes reappear • As the perpetual star • Multifoliate rose • Of death's twilight kingdom • The hope only • Of empty men. • • V • Here we go round the prickly pear • Prickly pear prickly pear • Here we go round the prickly pear • At five o'clock in the morning. • • Between the idea • And the reality • Between the motion • And the act • Falls the Shadow • For Thine is the Kingdom • • Between the conception • And the creation • Between the emotion • And the response • Falls the Shadow • Life is very long • • Between the desire • And the spasm • Between the potency • And the existence • Between the essence • And the descent • Falls the Shadow • For Thine is the Kingdom • • For Thine is • Life is • For Thine is the • • 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 a whimper. • • • T.S. Eliot Recites The Hollow Men

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