I
                            We are the hollow men
                            We are the stuffed men
                            Leaning together
                            Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
                            Our dried voices, when
                            We whisper together
                            Are quiet and meaningless
                            As wind in dry grass
                            Or rats' feet over broken glass
                            In our dry cellar

                            Shape without form, shade without colour,
                            Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

                            Those who have crossed
                            With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
                            Remember us -- if at all -- not as lost
                            Violent souls, but only
                            As the hollow men
                            The stuffed men.

                                              II
                            Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
                            In death's dream kingdom
                            These do not appear:
                            There, the eyes are
                            Sunlight on a broken column
                            There, is a tree swinging
                            And voices are
                            In the wind's singing
                            More distant and more solemn
                            Than a fading star.

                            Let me be no nearer
                            In death's dream kingdom
                            Let me also wear
                            Such deliberate disguises
                            Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves
                            In a field
                            Behaving as the wind behaves
                            No nearer --

                            Not that final meeting
                            In the twilight kingdom

                                          III
                            This is the dead land
                            This is cactus land
                            Here the stone images
                            Are raised, here they receive
                            The supplication of a dead man's hand
                            Under the twinkle of a fading star.

                            Is it like this
                            In death's other kingdom
                            Waking alone
                            At the hour when we are
                            Trembling with tenderness
                            Lips that would kiss
                            Form prayers to broken stone.

                                         IV
                            The eyes are not here
                            There are no eyes here
                            In this valley of dying stars
                            In this hollow valley
                            This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

                            In this last of meeting places
                            We grope together
                            And avoid speech
                            Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

                            Sightless, unless
                            The eyes reappear
                            As the perpetual star
                            Multifoliate rose
                            Of death's twilight kingdom
                            The hope only
                            Of empty men.

                                               V
                            Here we go round the prickly pear
                            Prickly pear prickly pear
                            Here we go round the prickly pear
                            At five o'clock in the morning.

                            Between the idea
                            And the reality
                            Between the motion
                            And the act
                            Falls the Shadow
                            For Thine is the Kingdom

                            Between the conception
                            And the creation
                            Between the emotion
                            And the response
                            Falls the Shadow
                            Life is very long

                            Between the desire
                            And the spasm
                            Between the potency
                            And the existence
                            Between the essence
                            And the descent
                            Falls the Shadow
                            For Thine is the Kingdom

                            For Thine is
                            Life is
                            For Thine is the

                            This is the way the world ends
                            This is the way the world ends
                            This is the way the world ends
                            Not with a bang but a whimper.