The Hollow Men

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 glassi n 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. The stuffed men 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 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 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 Between desire and spasm. Between the potency and existence Between the essence and descent falls shadow For Thine is the Kingdom This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper