T.S. Eliot (1888–1965). Poems. 1920.
10. Whispers of Immortality
W
And saw the skull beneath the skin;
And breastless creatures under ground
Leaned backward with a lipless grin.
Stared from the sockets of the eyes!
He knew that thought clings round dead limbs
Tightening its lusts and luxuries.
Who found no substitute for sense;
To seize and clutch and penetrate,
Expert beyond experience,
The ague of the skeleton;
No contact possible to flesh
Allayed the fever of the bone.
Grishkin is nice: her Russian eye
Is underlined for emphasis;
Uncorseted, her friendly bust
Gives promise of pneumatic bliss.
Compels the scampering marmoset
With subtle effluence of cat;
Grishkin has a maisonette;
Does not in its arboreal gloom
Distil so rank a feline smell
As Grishkin in a drawing-room.
Circumambulate her charm;
But our lot crawls between dry ribs
To keep our metaphysics warm.