We are the hollow men We are the stuffed men Headpiece filled with straw. Alas! Our dried voices, when We whisper together Are quiet and meaningless As wind in dry grass Or rats' feet on broken glass In our dry cellar.
Shape without form, shade without colour, Paralyzed 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.
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
This is the dead land This is cactus land Here the stone images Are raised, here they recieve 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
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.
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 Betwee the motion And the act Falls the Shadow
Between the conception And the creation Between the emotion And the response Falls the Shadow
Between the desire And the spasm Between the potency And the existence Between the essence And the descent Falls the Shadow
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.