Poetry Monday

Another by T. S. Eliot...

La Figlia Che Piange

(The Weeping Girl)

Stand on the highest pavement of the stair--


Lean on a garden urn--


Weave, weave the sunlight in your hair--


Clasp your flowers to you with a pained surprise--


Fling them to the ground and turn


With a fugitive resentment in your eyes:


But weave, weave the sunlight in your hair.






So I would have had him leave,


So I would have had her stand and grieve,


So he would have left


As the soul leaves the body torn and bruised,


As the mind deserts the body it has used.


I should find


Some way incomparably light and deft,


Some way we both should understand,


Simple and faithless as a smile and shake of the hand.


She turned away, but with the autumn weather


Compelled my imagination many days,


Many days and many hours:


Her hair over her arms and her arms full of flowers.


And I wonder how they should have been together!


I should have lost a gesture and a pose.


Sometimes these cogitations still amaze


The troubled midnight and the noon's repose.