T.S. Eliot (1888–1965). Poems. 1920.
12. Sweeney among the Nightingales
A
Letting his arms hang down to laugh,
The zebra stripes along his jaw
Swelling to maculate giraffe.
Slide westward toward the River Plate,
Death and the Raven drift above
And Sweeney guards the horned gate.
Are veiled; and hushed the shrunken seas;
The person in the Spanish cape
Tries to sit on Sweeney’s knees
Overturns a coffee-cup,
Reorganized upon the floor
She yawns and draws a stocking up;
Sprawls at the window-sill and gapes;
The waiter brings in oranges
Bananas figs and hothouse grapes;
Contracts and concentrates, withdraws;
Rachel née Rabinovitch
Tears at the grapes with murderous paws;
Are suspect, thought to be in league;
Therefore the man with heavy eyes
Declines the gambit, shows fatigue,
Outside the window, leaning in,
Branches of wistaria
Circumscribe a golden grin;
Converses at the door apart,
The nightingales are singing near
The Convent of the Sacred Heart,
When Agamemnon cried aloud,
And let their liquid droppings fall
To stain the stiff dishonoured shroud.