The wounded surgeon plies the steel / That questions the distempered part; / Beneath the bleeding hands we feel / The sharp compassion of the healer’s art / Resolving the enigma of the fever chart.
Our only health is the disease / If we obey the dying nurse / Whose constant care is not to please / But to remind of our, and Adam’s curse, / And that, to be restored, our sickness must grow worse.
The whole earth is our hospital / Endowed by the ruined millionaire, / Wherein, if we do well, we shall / Die of the absolute paternal care / that will not leave us, but prevents us everywhere.
The chill ascends from feet to knees, / The fever sings in mental wires. / If to be warmed, then I must freeze / And quake in frigid purgatorial fires / Of which the flame is roses, and the smoke is briars.
The dripping blood our only drink, / The bloody flesh our only food: / In spite of which we like to think / That we are sound, substantial flesh and blood — / Again, in spite of that, we call this Friday good.
(als je hier klikt, kun je het filmpje in youtube openen)
Meer audio van T.S. Eliot:
The wasteland
Ash wednesday
The journey of the magi
The hollow men