THE FRONT PORCH COLLECTION

This is my Front Porch Collection, or more precisely a collection of sun-yellowed,dog-eared volumes which nestle cosily on the window-sill in my front porch! There are presently 19 books in the august collection and I hope from time to time to bring you bits and pieces gleaned from their pages. To start the literary ball rolling I have chosen a poem from Selected Poems by T.S.Eliot, an anthology selected by the poet and first published in 1954. The short poem is taken from a longer work The Waste Land,one of Eliot's most regarded pieces.

DEATH BY WATER

Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,

Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell

And the profit and loss.

A current under sea

Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell

He passed the stages of his age and youth

Entering the whirlpool.

Gentile or Jew

O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,

Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.

T.S.Eliot