_Prufrock_ appeared in England in 1917. An American edition, including a number of other verses, was published under the title _Poems_ in 1920. Eliot’s early work is the more important; it is curious and sharply original. The exaltation which is the very breath of poetry is seldom present in Eliot’s later lines. A certain perverse brilliance takes its place, an unearthly light without warmth which has the sparkle if not the strength of fire. It flickers mockingly through most of Eliot’s sardonic pictures and shines with a bright pallor out of “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” and “Portrait of a Lady.” These two long poems are the book’s main exhibit; they are sensitive and psychologically probing.
Eliot’s ironic rhymed verses, which constitute the bulk of his work, are in his later style. It is this vein that tempts Eliot most—and is his own undoing. For irony, no matter how agile and erudite—and Eliot’s is both—must contain heat if it is to burn. And heat is one of the few things that cannot be juggled by this acrobatic satirist. His lines, for the most part, are a species of mordant light verse; complex and disillusioned _vers de société_.
They are rattling breakfast plates in basement kitchens, And along the trampled edges of the street I am aware of the damp souls of housemaids Sprouting despondently at area gates.
The brown waves of fog toss up to me Twisted faces from the bottom of the street, And tear from a passer-by with muddy skirts An aimless smile that hovers in the air And vanishes along the level of the roofs.
FROM “THE LOVE SONG OF J. ALFRED PRUFROCK”
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.
The winter evening settles down With smells of steaks in passageways. Six o’clock. The burnt-out ends of smoky days. And now a gusty shower wraps The grimy scraps Of withered leaves about his feet And newspapers from vacant lots; The showers beat On broken blinds and chimney pots, And at the corner of the street A lonely cab-horse steams and stamps, And then the lighting of the lamps.