S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse
 persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
 Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
 Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
 Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero,
 Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.
 
 
LET us go then, you and I, 
When the evening is spread out against the sky 
Like a patient etherised upon a table; 
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, 
The muttering retreats         5
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels 
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells: 
Streets that follow like a tedious argument 
Of insidious intent 
To lead you to an overwhelming question …         10
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?” 
Let us go and make our visit. 
 
In the room the [bad word] and go 
Talking of Michelangelo. 
 
The yellow fog [bad word] its back upon the window-panes,         15
The yellow smoke [bad word] its muzzle on the window-panes 
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening, 
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains, 
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys, 
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,         20
And seeing that it was a soft October night, 
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep. 
 
And indeed there will be time 
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street, [bad word] its back upon the window-panes;         25
There will be time, there will be time 
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet; 
There will be time to murder and create, 
And time for all the works and days of hands 
That lift and drop a question on your plate;         30
Time for you and time for me, 
And time yet for a hundred indecisions, 
And for a hundred visions and revisions, 
Before the taking of a toast and tea. 
 
In the room the [bad word] and go         35
Talking of Michelangelo. 
 
And indeed there will be time 
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?” 
Time to turn back and descend the stair, 
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—         40
[They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”] 
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin, 
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin— 
[They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”] 
Do I dare         45
Disturb the universe? 
In a minute there is time 
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. 
 
For I have known them all already, known them all:— 
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,         50
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons; 
I know the voices dying with a dying fall 
Beneath the music from a farther room. 
  So how should I presume? 
 
And I have known the eyes already, known them all—         55
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase, 
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin, 
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall, 
Then how should I begin 
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?         60
  And how should I presume? 
 
And I have known the arms already, known them all— 
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare 
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!] 
It is perfume from a dress         65
That makes me so digress? 
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl. 
  And should I then presume? 
  And how should I begin?
      .      .      .      .      . 
Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets         70
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes 
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?… 
 
I should have been a pair of ragged claws 
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
      .      .      .      .      . 
And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!         75
Smoothed by long f