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La Figlia Che Piange (The Weeping Girl) -- T S Eliot

Funny that Martin should bring up the Pre-Raphaelites, 'cos my next
choice is a poem which... well, read on.
(Poem #9) La Figlia Che Piange (The Weeping Girl)
Stand on the highest pavement of the stair -
Lean on a garden urn -
Weave, weave the sunlight in your hair -
Clasp your flowers to you with a pained suprise -
Fling them to the ground and turn
With a fugitive resentment in your eyes:
But weave, weave the sunlight in your hair.

So I would have had him leave,
So I would have had her stand and grieve,
So he would have left
As the soul leaves the body torn and bruised,
As the mind deserts the body it has used.
I should find
Some way incomparably light and deft,
Some way we both should understand,
Simple and faithless as a smile and a shake of the hand.

She turned away, but with the autumn weather
Compelled my imagination many days,
Many days and many hours:
Her hair over her arms and her arms full of flowers.
And I wonder how they should have been together!
I should have lost a gesture and a pose.
Sometimes these cogitations still amaze
The troubled midnight, and the noon's repose.
-- T S Eliot
from 'Prufrock and Other Observations', 1917.

The image in the first stanza reminds me irresistibly of the
Brotherhood; to know exactly why, visit
http://www.speel.demon.co.uk/other/prb.htm for a brief review of the
Pre-Raphaelites (and several pictures which capture their aesthetic
perfectly).

From the second stanza onwards we move into familiar Eliotesque terrain
- the explorations of time, faith, love and other Big Things. Despite
these metaphysical excursions, the poem remains free of allusion and
cross-referencing to a remarkable extent (for Eliot), and is still airy
and light in tenor.

For me, though, the whole impact of the poem hinges on the first verse,
which I think is simply beautiful.

thomas.

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