The Hollow Men
The Hollow Men
A poem by T.S. Eliot
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 glass
In 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
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