FOR THE LITERATURE CLASS AT ISTANBUL BILGI UNİ

Dear Students,

We are starting our Literature Class with Twentieth Century Poetry.
And a short story by Edgar Allan Poe.

Please print out the poems below.
You can reach Poe's short story at this link:
https://americanenglish.state.gov/files/ae/resource_files/the_tell-tale_heart_0.pdf

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When You Are Old

by WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

WHEN YOU ARE OLD AND GREY AND FULL OF SLEEP, 

And nodding by the fire, take down this book, 

And slowly read, and dream of the soft look 

Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep; 

How many loved your moments of glad grace, 

And loved your beauty with love false or true, 

But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you, 

And loved the sorrows of your changing face; 

And bending down beside the glowing bars, 

Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled 

And paced upon the mountains overhead 

And hid his face amid a crowd of stars. 

YOU CAN LISTEN TO THIS POEM: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/43283

The Waste Land

Related Poem Content Details

BY T. S. ELIOT

                                  FOR EZRA POUND
                                IL MIGLIOR FABBRO

              I. The Burial of the Dead

  April is the cruellest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing 

Memory and desire, stirring 

Dull roots with spring rain. 

Winter kept us warm, covering 

Earth in forgetful snow, feeding 

A little life with dried tubers. 

Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee 

With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade, 

And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten, 

And drank coffee, and talked for an hour. 

Bin gar keine Russin, stamm’ aus Litauen, echt deutsch. 

And when we were children, staying at the arch-duke’s, 

My cousin’s, he took me out on a sled, 

And I was frightened. He said, Marie, 

Marie, hold on tight. And down we went. 

In the mountains, there you feel free. 

I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter. 

  What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow 

Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man, 

You cannot say, or guess, for you know only 

A heap of broken images, where the sun beats, 

And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief, 

And the dry stone no sound of water. Only 

There is shadow under this red rock, 

(Come in under the shadow of this red rock), 

And I will show you something different from either 

Your shadow at morning striding behind you 

Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you; 

I will show you fear in a handful of dust. 

                      Frisch weht der Wind 

                      Der Heimat zu 

                      Mein Irisch Kind, 

                      Wo weilest du? 

“You gave me hyacinths first a year ago; 

“They called me the hyacinth girl.”

—Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden, 

Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not 

Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither 

Living nor dead, and I knew nothing, 

Looking into the heart of light, the silence. 

Oed’ und leer das Meer. 

  Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante, 

Had a bad cold, nevertheless 

Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe, 

With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she, 

Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor, 

(Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!) 

Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks, 

The lady of situations. 

Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel, 

And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card, 

Which is blank, is something he carries on his back, 

Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find 

The Hanged Man. Fear death by water. 

I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring. 

Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone, 

Tell her I bring the horoscope myself: 

One must be so careful these days. 

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

Related Poem Content Details

BY T. S. ELIOT

S’IO CREDESSE CHE MIA RISPOSTA FOSSE
A PERSONA CHE MAI TORNASSE AL MONDO,
QUESTA FIAMMA STARIA SENZA PIU SCOSSE.
MA PERCIOCHE GIAMMAI DI QUESTO FONDO
NON TORNO VIVO ALCUN, S’I’ODO IL VERO,
SENZA TEMA D’INFAMIA TI RISPONDO.

Let us go then, you and I, 

When the evening is spread out against the sky 

Like a patient etherized upon a table; 

Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, 

The muttering retreats 

Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels 

And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells: 

Streets that follow like a tedious argument 

Of insidious intent 

To lead you to an overwhelming question ... 

Oh, do not ask, “What is it?” 

Let us go and make our visit. 

In the room the women come and go 

Talking of Michelangelo. 

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes, 

The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes, 

Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening, 

Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains, 

Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys, 

Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap, 

And seeing that it was a soft October night, 

Curled once about the house, and fell asleep. 

And indeed there will be time 

For the yellow smoke that slides along the street, 

Rubbing its back upon the window-panes; 

There will be time, there will be time 

To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet; 

There will be time to murder and create, 

And time for all the works and days of hands 

That lift and drop a question on your plate; 

Time for you and time for me, 

And time yet for a hundred indecisions, 

And for a hundred visions and revisions, 

Before the taking of a toast and tea. 

In the room the women come and go 

Talking of Michelangelo. 

And indeed there will be time 

To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?” 

Time to turn back and descend the stair, 

With a bald spot in the middle of my hair — 

(They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”) 

My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin, 

My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin — 

(They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”) 

Do I dare 

Disturb the universe? 

In a minute there is time 

For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. 

For I have known them all already, known them all: 

Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, 

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons; 

I know the voices dying with a dying fall 

Beneath the music from a farther room. 

               So how should I presume? 

And I have known the eyes already, known them all— 

The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase, 

And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin, 

When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall, 

Then how should I begin 

To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways? 

               And how should I presume? 

And I have known the arms already, known them all— 

Arms that are braceleted and white and bare 

(But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!) 

Is it perfume from a dress 

That makes me so digress? 

Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl. 

               And should I then presume? 

               And how should I begin? 

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets 

And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes 

Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? ... 

I should have been a pair of ragged claws 

Scuttling across the floors of silent seas. 

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully! 

Smoothed by long fingers, 

Asleep ... tired ... or it malingers, 

Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me. 

Should I, after tea and cakes and ices, 

Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis? 

But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed, 

Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter, 

I am no prophet — and here’s no great matter; 

I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker, 

And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, 

And in short, I was afraid. 

And would it have been worth it, after all, 

After the cups, the marmalade, the tea, 

Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me, 

Would it have been worth while, 

To have bitten off the matter with a smile, 

To have squeezed the universe into a ball 

To roll it towards some overwhelming question, 

To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead, 

Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”— 

If one, settling a pillow by her head 

               Should say: “That is not what I meant at all; 

               That is not it, at all.” 

And would it have been worth it, after all, 

Would it have been worth while, 

After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets, 

After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor— 

And this, and so much more?— 

It is impossible to say just what I mean! 

But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen: 

Would it have been worth while 

If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl, 

And turning toward the window, should say: 

               “That is not it at all, 

               That is not what I meant, at all.” 

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be; 

Am an attendant lord, one that will do 

To swell a progress, start a scene or two, 

Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool, 

Deferential, glad to be of use, 

Politic, cautious, and meticulous; 

Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse; 

At times, indeed, almost ridiculous— 

Almost, at times, the Fool. 

I grow old ... I grow old ... 

I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. 

Shall I part my hair behind?   Do I dare to eat a peach? 

I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. 

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. 

I do not think that they will sing to me. 

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves 

Combing the white hair of the waves blown back 

When the wind blows the water white and black. 

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea 

By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown 

Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

You can listen to this poem: (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/detail/44212)