Explore "Whispers of Immortality" by T.S. Eliot on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
WEBSTER was much possessed by death / And saw the skull beneath the skin; / And breastless creatures under ground / Leaned backward with a lipless grin.
Daffodil bulbs instead of balls
Stared from the sockets of the eyes!
He knew that thought clings round dead limbs / Tightening its lusts and luxuries.
Donne, I suppose, was such another / Who found no substitute for sense; / To seize and clutch and penetrate, / Expert beyond experience,
He knew the anguish of the marrow / The ague of the skeleton;
No contact possible to flesh / Allayed the fever of the bone.
Grishkin is nice: her Russian eye / Is underlined for emphasis; / Uncorseted, her friendly bust / Gives promise of pneumatic bliss,
The couched Brazilian jaguar / Compels the scampering marmoset / With subtle effluence of cat; / Grishkin has a maisonette;
The sleek Brazilian jaguar
Does not in its arboreal gloom / Distil so rank a feline smell
As Grishkin in a drawing-room.
And even the Abstract Entities / Circumambulate her charm;
But our lot crawls between dry ribs / To keep our metaphysics warm.