Webster was much possessed by death
And saw the skull beneath the skin;
And breastless creatures under ground
Leaned backward with a lipless grin.
Daffodil bulbs instead of balls
Stared from the sockets of the eyes!
He knew that thought clings round dead limbs
Tightening its lusts and luxuries.
Donne, I suppose, was such another
Who found no substitute for sense;
To seize and clutch and penetrate,
Expert beyond experience,
He knew the anguish of the marrow
The ague of the skeleton;
No contact possible to flesh
Allayed the fever of the bone.
. . . . .
Grishkin is nice: her Russian eye
Is underlined for emphasis;
Uncorseted, her friendly bust
Gives promise of pneumatic bliss.
The couched Brazilian jaguar
Compels the scampering marmoset
With subtle effluence of cat;
Grishkin has a maisonette;
The sleek Brazilian jaguar
Does not in its arboreal gloom
Distil so rank a feline smell
As Grishkin in a drawing-room.
And even the Abstract Entities
Circumambulate her charm;
But our lot crawls between dry ribs
To keep our metaphysics warm.
By María Fernanda Salas
ResponderEliminarIn his poem "Whispers of Immortality," T.S. Eliot compares and contrasts two different ways of living and achieving immortality: the use of reason and the use of sex.
Eliot associates the figures of Webster, in the first stanza, and Donne, in the third stanza, to reason. Both of them are renowned English writers who led their lives using reason instead of feeling or sex. Through their writing, both Webster and Donne could become immortal. Webster "knew that thought clings round dead limbs" (7), which means that, even when a person's body is dead, his or her thoughts will still remain. For Donne, the same principle applies. He was an "expert beyond experience" (12) because he knew what the body suffered in order to remain alive. However, sexual contact is not a release of this pain because "no contact possible to flesh / Allayed the fever of the bone" (15-16).
On the other hand, there is Grishkin, the Russian ballerina. Unlike Donne and Webster, she relies more on sexual images and pleasure than in reason. She is depicted as a sexual being whose "uncorseted [...] bust / Gives promise of pneumatic bliss" (19-20). Grishkin is like a "couched Brazilian jaguar" (21) that lures her pray with her sex appeal and slickness.
All three figures in the poem are trying to achieve something beyond life: immortality. Webster and Donne attempt this through their writing, while Grishkin does so through sex appeal. Nevertheless and regardless of what they do, all they will ever be able to achieve are "whispers of immortality." Short periods of time when they are remembered, but then vanished into oblivion once again.