Hollow Men
January 27th, 2023
Hollow Men by T.S Eliot
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,
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.
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 eyes 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.
V
Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o’clock in the morning.
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long
Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
We are hollow men and women, our values are only illusory and arbitrary. Any values we might hold are equally worthy — we are told — which means are equally wholly worthless. We assign value to idiocy or popularity or painfully dull comfort — and they all are of the same property of easiness and familiar comfort of mind-numbing boredom. We are too tired, too timid, too considerate, and too mired in providing sustenance for our families to take a stand. And that doesn’t need to be a major stand, not something life-changing. Any stand for any values would do but it is not happening and we have hundreds of ready excuses. And then we escape into a hollowness of dreams and substances abuse and misuse, or money and power hoarding, or into a false remembering of memories and weep with longing after our lost youth and ideals.
We built our foundations on shiny scraps of knowledge and thoughts and hollow — so well-fitting — morals and ethics. We base our needs on the paralyzing desire to be the same as others. Inaction is always the best choice when action is needed. There is a shadow wrapping us like a safety blanket, but in actuality, it covers and muzzles and dulls our vision and emotions. Shadow from which we do not dare to step out because that would mean stepping outside of expected norms. In shadow, we only see vague and unfocused contours of us and our existence. Outside of it, we might see who we really are — with brutal sharpness and clarity. So we frantically pace around, making sure we would stay within the safety of hollowed existence. And our world and our reality of being will not end even with a whimper — but with a shrug and downward gaze only.
