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Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888-1965)

Morning at the Window


              1They are rattling breakfast plates in basement kitchens,
              2And along the trampled edges of the street
              3I am aware of the damp souls of housemaids
              4Sprouting despondently at area gates.

              5The brown waves of fog toss up to me
              6Twisted faces from the bottom of the street,
              7And tear from a passer-by with muddy skirts
              8An aimless smile that hovers in the air
              9And vanishes along the level of the roofs.

Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
© T.S. Eliot and Faber and Faber Ltd 1974
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.

Original text: T. S. Eliot, Prufrock and Other Observations (London: The Egoist, 1917): 31. E546 P784 1917 Fisher Rare Book Library.
First publication date: September 1916
Publication date note: First printed in "Observations," Poetry 8.6 (Sept. 1916). Donald Gallup, T. S. Eliot: A Bibliography (London: Faber and Faber, 1969): A1, C28.
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: RPO 1998.
Recent editing: 2:2002/4/25

Composition date: September 1914
Composition date note: early in September
Rhyme: unrhymed

Other poems by Thomas Stearns Eliot

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