T.S. Eliot · USA/UK · 1915
Let us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the sky Like a patient etherized 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. In the room the women come and go Talking of Michelangelo. I have measured out my life with coffee spoons; I know the voices dying with a dying fall Beneath the music from a farther room. So how should I presume? Do I dare Disturb the universe? In a minute there is time For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. I grow old ... I grow old ... I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach? I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think that they will sing to me.
T.S. Eliot · USA/UK · 1915
Let us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the sky Like a patient etherized 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. In the room the women come and go Talking of Michelangelo. I have measured out my life with coffee spoons; I know the voices dying with a dying fall Beneath the music from a farther room. So how should I presume? Do I dare Disturb the universe? In a minute there is time For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. I grow old ... I grow old ... I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach? I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think that they will sing to me.
“Let us go then, you and I,…”
Come with me on a walk through a gloomy city at night. The sky looks as dull and still as a patient unconscious on an operating table. We'll wander through dingy streets — the kinds of places heavy with unspoken questions. I keep putting off asking the important things in life.
“In the room the women come and go…”
At the party we're heading to, women drift through rooms discussing art and genius — things that feel impossibly grand compared to my small, hesitant existence.
“I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;…”
I've lived so cautiously, measuring time in trivial moments. Would I even dare disrupt anything? Probably not — I second-guess every choice. I grow older, ponder absurd questions like whether to part my hair differently or dare to eat a peach.
“Do I dare…”
I hear the mermaids — the beautiful, magical things in life — singing to each other. But I don't believe they're singing for someone like me.
“I grow old ... I grow old ...…”
I hear the mermaids — the beautiful, magical things in life — singing to each other. But I don't believe they're singing for someone like me.
“Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?…”
I hear the mermaids — the beautiful, magical things in life — singing to each other. But I don't believe they're singing for someone like me.
Why this poem matters
Written when Eliot was just 22, this poem captures the inner monologue of a middle-aged man paralyzed by social anxiety and the fear of insignificance. It launched literary modernism.