Marina
by T.S. Eliot in 1929
 
 
Quis hic locus, quae regio, quae mundi plaga?
  
   
   
   
     
   
What seas what shores what grey rocks and what islands  
What water lapping the bow  
And scent of pine and the woodthrush singing through the fog  
What images return  
O my daughter.  
     
  ...Those who sharpen the tooth of the dog, meaning  
  Death  
  Those who glitter with the glory of the hummingbird, meaning  
  Death  
  Those who sit in the stye of contentment, meaning  
  Death  
  Those who suffer the ecstasy of the animals, meaning  
  Death  
     
  …Are become insubstantial, reduced by a wind,  
  A breath of pine, and the woodsong fog  
  By this grace dissolved in place  
     
  …What is this face, less clear and clearer  
  The pulse in the arm, less strong and stronger—  
  Given or lent? more distant than stars and nearer than the eye  
     
  …Whispers and small laughter between leaves and hurrying feet  
  Under sleep, where all the waters meet.  
     
  …Bowsprit cracked with ice and paint cracked with heat.  
  I made this, I have forgotten  
  And remember.  
  The rigging weak and the canvas rotten  
  Between one June and another September.  
  Made this unknowing, half conscious, unknown, my own.  
  The garboard strake leaks, the seams need caulking.  
  This form, this face, this life  
  Living to live in a world of time beyond me; let me  
  Resign my life for this life, my speech for that unspoken,  
  The awakened, lips parted, the hope, the new ships.  
     
  …What seas what shores what granite islands towards my timbers  
  And woodthrush calling through the fog  
  My daughter.  
     
     
     
 
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