T. S. Eliot           The Hollow Men                     Mistah Kurtz-he dead.                               A penny for the Old Guy I 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, Paralyzed 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. II 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. III 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 IV The eyes are not here There are no eye 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. 1925