T.S. Eliot (1888–1965). Poems. 1920.
2. Burbank with a Baedeker: Bleistein with a Cigar
B
Descending at a small hotel;
Princess Volupine arrived,
They were together, and he fell.
Passed seaward with the passing bell
Slowly: the God Hercules
Had left him, that had loved him well.
Beat up the dawn from Istria
With even feet. Her shuttered barge
Burned on the water all the day.
A saggy bending of the knees
And elbows, with the palms turned out,
Chicago Semite Viennese.
Stares from the protozoic slime
At a perspective of Canaletto.
The smoky candle end of time
The rats are underneath the piles.
The jew is underneath the lot.
Money in furs. The boatman smiles,
A meagre, blue-nailed, phthisic hand
To climb the waterstair. Lights, lights,
She entertains Sir Ferdinand
And flea’d his rump and pared his claws?
Thought Burbank, meditating on
Time’s ruins, and the seven laws.