The Hollow Men
T. S. Eliot
1888 to 1965
Track 1
Reconstruct the poem by dragging each line into its correct position. Your goal is to reassemble the original poem as accurately as possible. As you move the lines, you'll see whether your arrangement is correct, helping you explore the poem's flow and meaning. You can also print out the jumbled poem to cut up and reassemble in the classroom. Either way, take your time, enjoy the process, and discover how the poet's words come together to create something truly beautiful.
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Of empty men.
In a field
Under the twinkle of a fading star.
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Let me also wear
Remember us—if at all—not as lost
In the twilight kingdom
As the perpetual star
And the existence
There, is a tree swinging
And the reality
Sightless, unless
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Violent souls, but only
We whisper together
And voices are
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river
Leaning together
And the response
In death's other kingdom
And the descent
We grope together
IV
These do not appear:
Not with a bang but a whimper.
Of death's twilight kingdom
The eyes are not here
III
More distant and more solemn
Falls the Shadow
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man's hand
Is it like this
Between the conception
Lips that would kiss
We are the hollow men
This is the dead land
Or rats' feet over broken glass
Here we go round the prickly pear
As wind in dry grass
The eyes reappear
For Thine is the Kingdom
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
Falls the Shadow
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;
This is the way the world ends
We are the stuffed men
There, the eyes are
Than a fading star.
Form prayers to broken stone.
Between the emotion
This is the way the world ends
Not that final meeting
Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
And avoid speech
Shape without form, shade without colour.
Prickly pear prickly pear
A penny for the Old Guy
In this last of meeting places
And the act
For Thine is
Are quiet and meaningless
In our dry cellar
And the spasm
The hope only
Between the desire
Here we go round the prickly pear
Behaving as the wind behaves
In the wind's singing
V
Multifoliate rose
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Life is
In this valley of dying stars
In death's dream kingdom
In this hollow valley
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Such deliberate disguises
Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves
Let me be no nearer
At five o'clock in the morning.
Our dried voices, when
Between the potency
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms
II
And the creation
No nearer—
For Thine is the
Sunlight on a broken column
In death's dream kingdom
This is the way the world ends
Life is very long
Those who have crossed
As the hollow men
Between the idea
There are no eyes here
Between the essence
I
Waking alone
Between the motion