Classic Audiobook Collection - The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot ~ Full Audiobook [poetry]

Episode Date: June 27, 2023

The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot audiobook. Genre: poetry First published in 1922, T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land is a landmark modernist poem that moves through a shattered cultural landscape after World War I, where memory, desire, faith, and daily survival collide. Told in a collage of shifting speakers and sudden scene changes, the poem drifts from crowded city streets and tense domestic rooms to ruined chapels and mythic shorelines, each fragment haunted by echoes of literature, religion, and legend. Eliot weaves together voices that sound intimate, overheard, and prophetic, creating a kind of dramatic chorus that asks what remains when shared meaning breaks apart. As images of drought and decay press against fleeting moments of tenderness, humor, and music, the poem becomes both an elegy for a depleted world and a restless search for renewal. Dense with allusion yet powered by raw atmosphere, The Waste Land invites listeners to surrender to its rhythm, follow its recurring symbols, and hear how the past keeps speaking through the present. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 1 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

THE WASELAND By T. S. Eliot Section 1 The Burial of the Dead April is the cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain.

Winter kept us warm, covering earth in forgetful snow, feeding a little life with dried tubers. Summer surprised us. coming over the Starnberger-Zee with a shower of rain. We stopped in the colonnade, and went on in sunlight into the Hofgarten, and drank coffee, and talked for an hour. Bingarkeina russin, Stamausletown, ech Deutsch.

And when we were children, staying at the Archdukes, my cousins, he took me out on a sled, and I was frightened. He said, Marie, Marie, hold on tight, and down we went. In the mountains, there you feel free. I read much of the night, and go south in the winter. What are the roots that clutch? What branches grow out of this stony rubbish? Son of man you cannot say or guess, for you know only a heap of broken images, where the sun beats, and the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief, and the dry stone no sound of water. Only there is shadow under this red rock. Come in under the shadow of this red rock.

And I will show you something different, from either your shadow at morning striding behind you, or your shadow at evening rising to meet you. I will show you fear. in a handful of dust. Frisch, weet der wind, Der Chimatso, My Irish kind, Wo vilest thou? You gave me hyacinths first a year ago.

They called me the hyacinth girl. Yet, when we came back late, From the hyacinth garden, Your arms full and your hair wet, I could not speak, And my eyes failed. I was neither living, nor dead, and I knew nothing, looking into the heart of light, the silence. Oot

and Lir, Dasmir. Madame Sissostris, famous, clairvoyant, had a bad cold. Nevertheless is known to be the wisest woman in Europe, with a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she, is your card, the drowned Phoenician sailor. Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look. Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks, the Lady of Situations. Here is the man with three staves, and here the wheel, and here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card, which is blank, is something he carries on his back which I am forbidden to

see. I do not find the hanged man. Fear death by water. I see crowds of people walking right. round in a ring. Thank you. If you see, dear Mrs. Equitone, tell her I bring the horoscope myself. One must be so careful these days. Unreal city. Under the brown fog of a winter dawn. A crowd flowed over London Bridge.

So many. I had not thought death had undone so many. Sighs, short and infrequent, were. exhaled, and each man fixed his eyes before his feet, flowed up the hill and down King William Street, to where St. Mary Wolneth kept the hours with a dead sound on the final stroke of nine. There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying, Stetson, you who were with me in the ships at Miley! That corpse you planted last year in your garden!

Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this? year or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed oh keep the dog far hence that's friend to men or with his nails he'll dig it up again you hypocrite lecture mon semblable mon frere section two a game of chess the chair she sat in like a burnished throne glowed on the marble where the glass held up by standards wrought with fruited vines, from which a golden cupidon peeped out. Another hid his eyes behind his wing. Doubled the flames of a seven-branched candelabra, reflecting light upon the table as the glitter of her jewels rose to meet it. From satin cases poured in rich profusion. In vials of ivory and colored glass, unstoppered, lurked her strange synthetic perfumes. Unguant, powdered or liquid, troubled, confused and drowned the sants in odors. Sturred by the air that freshened from the window, these ascended in fattening the prolonged candle flames, flung their smoke into the laceria, stirring the pattern on the coffered ceiling. Huge seawood fed with copper burned green and orange, framed by the colored stone,

in which sad light a carved dolphin swam. Above the antique mantle was displayed, as though a window gave upon the sylvan scene, the change of filamel by the barbarous king so rudely forced. Yet there the nightingale filled all the desert with inviolable voice, and still she cried, and still the world pursues, jug-jug to dirty ears. and other withered stumps of time were told upon the walls staring forms leaned out leaning hushing the room enclosed

footsteps shuffled on the stair under the firelight under the brush her hair spread out in fiery points glowed into words then would be savagely still my nerves are bad to-night yes bad Stay with me. Speak to me. Why do you never speak? Speak. What are you thinking of? What thinking? What?

I never know what you were thinking. Think. I think we are in rat's alley where the dead men lost their bones. What is that noise? The wind under the door. What is that noise now? What is the wind doing? Nothing.

Again, nothing. Do you know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember nothing? I remember. Those are pearls that were his eyes. Are you alive or not? Is there nothing in your head?

But, oh, oh, oh, oh, that shakes Baheerian rag. It's so elegant, so intelligent. what shall i do now what shall i do i shall rush out as i am and walk the street with my hair down so what shall we do to-morrow what shall we ever do the hot water at ten and if it rains a closed car at four and we shall play a game of chess pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a knock upon the door When Lil's husband got demobbed, I said, I didn't mince my words, I said to her myself. Hurry up, please. It's time. Now Albert's coming back. Make yourself a bit smart.

He'll want to know what you done with that money he gave you to get yourself some teeth. He did. I was there. You have them all out, Lil, and get a nice set, he said. I swear I can't bear to look at you. And no more can't I, I said. And think of poor Albert. He's been in the army four years. He wants a good time. And if you don't give it him, there's others will, I said.

Oh, is there? she said. Something of that, I said. Then I'll know who to thank, she said, and give me a straight look. Hurry up, please. It's time. If you don't like it, you can get on with it, I said. Others can pick and choose if you can't. But if Albert makes off, it won't be for lack of telling. You ought to be ashamed, I said, to look so antique, and are only thirty-one.

I can't help it, she said, pulling a long face. It's them pills I took to bring it off, she said. She's had five already, and nearly died a young George. The chemist said it would be all right, but I've never been the same. You are a proper fool, I said. Well, if Albert won't leave you alone, there it is. I said, what you get married for if you don't want children. Hurry up, please. It's time. Well, that Sunday, Albert was home.

They had a hot gammon, and they asked me into dinner to get the beauty a bit hot. Hurry up, please. It's time. Hurry up, please. It's time. Good night, Bill. Good night, Lou. Good night, May. Good night. Tata. Good night. Good night. Good night, ladies. Good night, sweet ladies. Good night, good night. Section 3. 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. The river bears. There's 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 airs of city directors, departed, have left no addresses. By the waters of Lehman 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. 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 gas-house, 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 horn, and motors, which shall bring Sweeney to Mrs. Porter in the spring. Oh, the moon shone bright on Mrs. Porter, and on her daughter. They wash their feet in soda water.

And, oh, these voids'-d'-enphonse, chant in the cupola! Twit, twit, twit, twig, twug, jug, jug, jug, jug. So rudely forced. Teru Unreal City Under the brown fog of a winter noon Mr. Eugenides the Smyrna merchant Unshaven with a pocket full of currents

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, Tyresius, though blind, throbbing

between two lives, old man with wrinkled female breasts, can see at the violet hour, the evening hour that strives homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea. The typist home at tea-time, Clears her breakfast, lights her stove, and lays out food in tins. Out of the window perilously spread, her drying combinations touched by the sun's last rays. On the divan are piled, at night her bed, stalking, slippers, camisoles, and stays. I, Tyresius, old man with wrinkled dugs, perceived the scene, and foretold the rest. I, too, awaited the expected guest. He, the young man, carbuncular, arrives, a small house-agent's clerk, with one bold stare,

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, endeavors 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 tyresius have for-suffered all enacted on this same divan orbed i who have sat by thebes below the wall and walked among the lowest of the dead bestows one final patronizing kiss, and gropes his way, finding the stairs unlit. She turns and looks a moment in the glass, hardly aware of her departed lover. 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 smooths her hair with all over. She smooths 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. Oh, city! City I can sometimes hear, beside a public bar in Lower Thames Street, the pleasant whining of a mandolin, and a clatter and a chatter from within, where fishmen lounge at noon, where the walls of Magnus Martyr hold inexplicable splendor of Ionian white and gold.

The river sweats, oil and tar, the barges drift with the turning tide, red sails wide, two leeward swing on the heavy spar. The barges wash, drifting logs, down Greenwich reach, past the isle of dogs. Ayah-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la. Elizabeth and Lester, beating oars, the stern was formed, a gilded shell, red and gold, the brisk swell, rippled both shores, southwest wind, carried downstream, the peal of bells, white towers. Whia la la la la la la La la la la

Trams and dusty trees Highbury bore me Richmond and Q undid me By Richmond I raised my knees Supine on the floor of a narrow canoe My feet are at Morgut 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 Margut 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, burning. O Lord, thou pluckest me out. O Lord, thou pluckest. Burning. Section 4.

Death by water. Blabas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead, forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea-swell, and the prophet and loss. A current under sea picked his bones in whispers, As he rose and fell, he passed the stages of his age and youth, entering the whirlpool. Gentile or Jew, O you who turn the wheel and look to windward, consider Flabas, who was once handsome and tall as you.

Section 5 What the Thunder said After the torchlight read on sweaty vases, after the frosty silence in the gardens, after the agony in stony places, the shouting and the crying, prison and palace and reverberation of thunder, of spring over distant mountains. He who was living is now dead,

we who were living are now dying, with a little patience. Here is no water, but only rock, Rock and no water, and the sandy road, the road winding above among the mountains, which are mountains of rock without water. If there were water we should stop and drink. Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think. Sweat is dry and feet are in the sand. If there were only water amongst the rock, dead mountain mouth of curious teeth that cannot spit, here one is dry and feet are in the sand, here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit. There is not even silence in the mountains, but dry,

sterile thunder without rain. There is not even solitude in the mountains, but red, sullen faces sneer and snarl from doors of mud-cracked houses. If there were water—and no rock—if there were rock and also water—and water—and water—a spring, a pool among the rock. If there were the sound of water only—not the cicada, and dry grass singing, but sound of water over a rock where the hermit-thrush sings in the pine-trees, drip-drop, drip-drop, drop, drop, drop. But there is no water. Who is the third who walks always beside you? When I count— There are only you and I together.

But when I look ahead up the white road, there is always another one walking beside you. Gliding, wrapped in a brown mantle, hooded. I do not know whether a man or a woman. But who is that on the other side of you? What is that sound high in the air? Murmur of maternal lamentation. Who are those hooded hord swarming over endless plains, stumbling in cracked earth, ringed by the flat horizon only.

What is the city over the mountains? Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air? Falling towers. Jerusalem, Athens, Alexandria, Vienna, London. Unreal. A woman drew her long black hair out tight and fiddled whisper music on those strings, and bats with baby faces in the violet light whistled and beat their wings and crawled head downward down a blackened wall and upside down an air were towers tolling reminiscent bells that kept the hours and voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells

in this decayed whole among the mountains in the faint moonlight the grass is singing over the tumbled graves about the chapel There is the empty chapel only the wind's home. It has no windows, and the door swings. Dry bones can harm no one. Only a cock stood on the roof tree. Coco Rico, Coco Rico! In a flash of lightning. Then a damp gust, bringing rain.

Ganga was sunken, and the limp leaves waited for rain, while the black clouds gathered far distant over himmavant. The jungle crouched, humped in silence. Then spoke the thunder. Da! Data! What have we given? My friend, blood-shaking my heart,

the awful daring of a moment's surrender which an age of prudence can never retract. By this and this only we have existed, which is not to be found in our obituaries, or in memories draped by the beneficent spider, or under seals broken by the lean solicitor, in our empty rooms. Dha Thayadfam I have heard the key turn in the door once, and turn once only.

We think of the key, each in his prison, thinking of the key, each confirms a prison, Only at nightfall, ethereal rumors revive for a moment a broken coriolanus. D. Dhamyatta The boat responded gaily, to the hand expert with sail and oar. The sea was calm. Your heart would have responded gaily, when invited, beating obedient to controlling hands. I sat upon the shore fishing, with the arid plain.

behind me. Shall I at least set my lands in order? London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down. Poissacos in elphoco, shegli affina. When do feea muti-calidon? Oh, swallow, swallow, le prince These fragments I have shored against my ruins. Why then, I'll fit you? Hieronymus mad again. Data, Diatfam, Damyatta. Shanti, Shanti, shanty, shanty. End of the Wasteland by T.S. Eliot.