Great Poetry

[thesummerqueen]

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
T.S. Eliot

LET us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
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….
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.

It's a long poem so I won't include it all here, but it's the one of two that have followed me almost all of my life. I learned it in high school, and it both fascinated and scared the shit out of me, and when Hitchens quoted a portion of it in one of his last articles, I put my face in my hands and wept.