And the trees about me, <br /> Let them be dry and leafless; let the rocks <br /> Groan with continual surges; and behind me <br /> Make all a desolation. Look, look, wenches! <br /> <br /> <br />Paint me a cavernous waste shore <br />Cast in the unstilted Cyclades, <br />Paint me the bold anfractuous rocks <br />Faced by the snarled and yelping seas. <br /> <br />Display me Aeolus above <br />Reviewing the insurgent gales <br />Which tangle Ariadne's hair <br />And swell with haste the perjured sails. <br /> <br />Morning stirs the feet and hands <br />(Nausicaa and Polypheme), <br />Gesture of orang-outang <br />Rises from the sheets in steam. <br /> <br />This withered root of knots of hair <br />Slitted below and gashed with eyes, <br />This oval O cropped out with teeth: <br />The sickle motion from the thighs <br /> <br />Jackknifes upward at the knees <br />Then straightens out from heel to hip <br />Pushing the framework of the bed <br />And clawing at the pillow slip. <br /> <br />Sweeney addressed full length to shave <br />Broadbottomed, pink from nape to base, <br />Knows the female temperament <br />And wipes the suds around his face. <br /> <br />(The lengthened shadow of a man <br />Is history, said Emerson <br />Who had not seen the silhouette <br />Of Sweeney straddled in the sun). <br /> <br />Tests the razor on his leg <br />Waiting until the shriek subsides. <br />The epileptic on the bed <br />Curves backward, clutching at her sides. <br /> <br />The ladies of the corridor <br />Find themselves involved, disgraced, <br />Call witness to their principles <br />And deprecate the lack of taste <br /> <br />Observing that hysteria <br />Might easily be misunderstood; <br />Mrs. Turner intimates <br />It does the house no sort of good. <br /> <br />But Doris, towelled from the bath, <br />Enters padding on broad feet, <br />Bringing sal volatile <br />And a glass of brandy neat.<br /><br />Thomas Stearns Eliot<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/sweeney-erect/
