Ode
T.S. Eliot * Track #1 On Ara Vos Prec
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Ode by T.S. Eliot
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T.S. EliotAbout
“Ode” was written by T.S. Eliot in 1918, three years into his marriage with his wife Vivienne. It was published in 1920 in Ara Vos Prec, but Eliot later excluded the work from the collection’s American edition (simply titled Poems) and from later editions of his collected poems.
The poem consists o...
Ode Annotated
To you particularly, and to all the Volscians
Great hurt and mischief.
Tired.
Subterrene laughter synchronous
With silence from the sacred wood
And bubbling of the uninspired
Mephitic river.
Misunderstood
The accents of the now retired
Profession of the calamus.
Tortured.
When the bridegroom smoothed his hair
There was blood upon the bed.
Morning was already late.
Children singing in the orchard
(Io Hymen, Hymenaee)
Succuba eviscerate.
Tortuous.
By arrangement with Perseus
The fooled resentment of the dragon
Sailing before the wind at dawn
Golden apocalypse. Indignant
At the cheap extinction of his taking-off.
Now lies he there
Tip to tip washed beneath Charles' Wagon.