Episode 29 “THE HOLLOW MEN” - TS Eliot reads his poem #NaPodPoMo READING POETRY

You hear Paul O’Mahony introduce TS Eliot reading “The Hollow Men”
——————-
THE HOLLOW MEN 

                              I 
We are the hollow men  
We are the stuffed men  
Leaning together 
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas! 
Our dried voices, when  
We whisper together  
Are quiet and meaningless 
As wind in dry grass  
Or rats’ feet over broken glass 
In our dry cellar 

Shape without form, shade without colour.  
Paralysed 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  

                              II 

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 

                              III 

This is the dead land 
This is cactus land 
Here the stone images 
Are raised, here they receive 
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. 

                              IV 

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. 

                              V 

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  
Between the motion  
And the act  
Falls the Shadow 

                                  For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception  
And the creation 
Between the emotion  
And the response  
Falls the Shadow 

                                  Life is very long

Between the desire  
And the spasm  
Between the potency  
And the existence  
Between the essence  
And the descent  
Falls the Shadow 

                                  For Thine is the Kingdom

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
———————-
Listen to the full series at https://napodpomo.org/napodpomo-2025-mega-feed/ 
Follow me on Spotify, Audioboom, and Apple Podcasts