The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (Soundtrack) - Karl Verkade

Let us go then you and I

When the evening is spread out against the sky

Like a patient etherized upon a table

Let us go through certain half-deserted streets

The muttering retreats

Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels

And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells

Streets that follow like a tedious argument

Of insidious intent

To lead you to an overwhelming question

Oh do not ask "What is it"

Let us go and make our visit

In the room the women come and go

Talking of Michelangelo

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes

The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes

Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening

Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains

Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys

Slipped by the terrace made a sudden leap

And seeing that it was a soft October night

Curled once about the house and fell asleep

And indeed there will be time

For the yellow smoke that slides along the street

Rubbing its back upon the window-panes

There will be time there will be time

To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet

There will be time to murder and create

And time for all the works and days of hands

That lift and drop a question on your plate

Time for you and time for me

And time yet for a hundred indecisions

And for a hundred visions and revisions

Before the taking of a toast and tea

In the room the women come and go

Talking of Michelangelo

And indeed there will be time

To wonder "Do I dare" and "Do I dare"

Time to turn back and descend the stair

With a bald spot in the middle of my hair

They will say "How his hair is growing thin"

My morning coat my collar mounting firmly to the chin

My necktie rich and modest but asserted by a simple pin-

They will say "But how his arms and legs are thin"

Do I dare

Disturb the universe

In a minute there is time

For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse

For I have known them all already known them all

Have known the evenings mornings afternoons

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons

I know the voices dying with a dying fall

Beneath the music from a farther room

So how should I presume

And I have known the eyes already known them all

The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase

And when I am formulated sprawling on a pin

When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall

Then how should I begin

To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways

And how should I presume

And I have known the arms already known them all

Arms that are braceleted and white and bare

But in the lamplight downed with light brown hair

Is it perfume from a dress

That makes me so digress

Arms that lie along a table or wrap about a shawl

And should I then presume

And how should I begin

Shall I say I have gone at dusk through narrow streets

And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes

Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves leaning out of windows

I should have been a pair of ragged claws

Scuttling across the floors of silent seas

And the afternoon the evening sleeps so peacefully

Smoothed by long fingers

Asleep tired or it malingers

Stretched on the floor here beside you and me

Should I after tea and cakes and ices

Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis

But though I have wept and fasted wept and prayed

Though I have seen my head grown slightly bald brought in upon a platter

I am no prophet and here's no great matter

I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker

And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat and snicker

And in short I was afraid

And would it have been worth it after all

After the cups the marmalade the tea

Among the porcelain among some talk of you and me

Would it have been worth while

To have bitten off the matter with a smile

To have squeezed the universe into a ball

To roll it toward some overwhelming question

To say "I am Lazarus come from the dead

Come back to tell you all I shall tell you all"

If one settling a pillow by her head

Should say "That is not what I meant at all

That is not it at all"

And would it have been worth it after all

Would it have been worth while

After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets

After the novels after the teacups after the skirts that trail along the floor

And this and so much more

It is impossible to say just what I mean

But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen

Would it have been worth while

If one settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl

And turning toward the window should say

"That is not it at all

That is not what I meant at all"

No I am not Prince Hamlet nor was meant to be

Am an attendant lord one that will do

To swell a progress start a scene or two

Advise the prince

Advise the prince

No doubt an easy tool

Deferential glad to be of use

Politic cautious and meticulous

Full of high sentence but a bit obtuse

At times indeed almost ridiculous

Almost at times the Fool

I grow old I grow old

I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled

Shall I part my hair behind

Do I dare to eat a peach

I shall wear white flannel trousers and walk upon the beach

I have heard the mermaids singing each to each

I do not think that they will sing to me

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves

Combing the white hair of the waves blown back

When the wind blows the water white and black

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea

By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown

Till human voices wake us and we drown