#that he was happiest before he came to think of her as vulgar & resented himself for wanting her
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A Cooking Egg by T.S. Eliot
    En l'an trentiesme de mon aage     Que toutes mes hontes j'ay beues
Pipit sate upright in her chair Some distance from where I was sitting; Views of the Oxford Colleges Lay on the table, with the knitting.
Daguerreotypes and silhouettes, Her grandfather and great great aunts, Supported on the mantelpiece An Invitation to the Dance.
. . . . .
I shall not want Honour in Heaven For I shall meet Sir Philip Sidney And have talk with Coriolanus And other heroes of that kidney.
I shall not want Capital in Heaven For I shall meet Sir Alfred Mond: We two shall lie together, lapt In a five per cent Exchequer Bond.
I shall not want Society in Heaven, Lucretia Borgia shall be my Bride; Her anecdotes will be more amusing Than Pipit's experience could provide.
I shall not want Pipit in Heaven: Madame Blavatsky will instruct me In the Seven Sacred Trances; Piccarda de Donati will conduct me …
. . . . .
But where is the penny world I bought To eat with Pipit behind the screen? The red-eyed scavengers are creeping From Kentish Town and Golder's Green;
Where are the eagles and the trumpets?
Buried beneath some snow-deep Alps. Over buttered scones and crumpets Weeping, weeping multitudes Droop in a hundred A.B.C.'s.
#this poem is from the same era as prufrock but isn’t as well known#it's a shame because i could talk about it for hours#once you've read and explicated it within a framework of literary & historical & biographical context you can have fun interpreting it#sometimes i'll read it with trans goggles on#works like syncing dark side of the moon to the wizard of oz#it's not just about the title--the narrator is somebody who is indefinitely postponing transition. the inanity of hatching into a dull bird#he is assuring himself that when he dies none of it will matter. he won't feel ugly or lonely or bored or stupid#but the dismissal of pipit and her simplicity pivots into the bittersweet realization that he's given her up for nothing.#that he was happiest before he came to think of her as vulgar & resented himself for wanting her#the world will end all the same and all he'll ever have is joylessness and the absence of pipit#t.s. eliot#poetry#i read much of the night and go south in the winter
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