Burbank With A Baedeker: Bleistein With A Cigar

T. S. EliotT. S. Eliot26 Sept 1888 – 4 Jan 1965

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Tra-la-la-la-la-la-laire—nil nisi divinum stabile
   est; caetera fumus—the gondola stopped, the old
   palace was there, how charming its grey and pink—
   goats and monkeys, with such hair too!—so the
   countess passed on until she came through the
   little park, where Niobe presented her with a
   cabinet, and so departed.
Burbank crossed a little bridge
  Descending at a small hotel;
Princess Volupine arrived,
  They were together, and he fell.Defunctive music under sea
  Passed seaward with the passing bell
Slowly: the God Hercules
  Had left him, that had loved him well.The horses, under the axletree
  Beat up the dawn from Istria
With even feet. Her shuttered barge
  Burned on the water all the day.But this or such was Bleistein’s way:
  A saggy bending of the knees
And elbows, with the palms turned out,
  Chicago Semite Viennese.A lustreless protrusive eye
  Stares from the protozoic slime
At a perspective of Canaletto.
  The smoky candle end of timeDeclines. On the Rialto once.
  The rats are underneath the piles.
The jew is underneath the lot.
  Money in furs. The boatman smiles,Princess Volupine extends
  A meagre, blue-nailed, phthisic hand
To climb the waterstair. Lights, lights,
  She entertains Sir FerdinandKlein. Who clipped the lion’s wings
  And flea’d his **** and pared his claws?
Thought Burbank, meditating on
  Time’s ruins, and the seven laws.
T. S. Eliot
About the poet

T. S. Eliot

Thomas Stearns Eliot OM (26 September 1888 – 4 January 1965) was an American-born British poet, essayist, publisher, playwright, literary critic and editor. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, to a prominent Boston Brahmin family, he moved to England in 1914 at the…

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