Leitura Matinal -103

A impotência do homem perante as catástrofes naturais deveria
equilibrar no seu espírito, se ainda algum lhe restasse, a única
angústia de que ainda é capaz - a que experimenta perante os
desastres que ele próprio provoca. É que estes, embora temíveis,
ainda o tranquilizam, na medida em que lhe asseguram a capacidade
de domínio que só o erro pode fazer descambar. E o homem de
hoje sossega-se ao considerar o erro. Permite-lhe o impensado
optimismo que prevê nele não incorrer e, como força suprema que
se julga, dispensa-se de pensar no Mal, ao menos para além da
vida terrena, a única que reconhece. Deparando com ele e, pior,
chegando a identificá-lo, deixa-se absorver e instrumentalizar, ao
ponto de fazer pensar, a quem creia na existência do Reino das
Trevas para lá desta nossa passagem, se poderá experimentar
alguma surpresa, ainda que negativa. Alcançaremos ainda o Ramo de
Ouro que nos permita abrir as terríveis portas, ir, voltar,
compreender e, dessa forma, infantil mas eficaz, melhorar?
É o homem sem Espiritualidade, ou procurando, por gosto do exótico
e do oculto, espiritualidades de pacotilha que São Eliot nos deu nessa
Insinuação da Fé sem ilusões,

THE HOLLOW MEN

Mistah Kurtz - he dead.

THE HOLLOW MEN

A penny for the Old Guy

I

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpice filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meanlingness
As wind in dry grass
Or rats´ feet over broken glass
In ou dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death´s other Kingdom
Remember us - if at all - not as lost
violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

II

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In Earth´s dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind´s singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star

Let me be no nearer
In death´s dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat´s coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the win behaves
No nearer-

Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom

III

This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man´s hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this
In death´s other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.

IV

The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
On this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms
In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoyd speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death´s twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.

V

Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear Prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o´clock in the morning.

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
.....................................................For Thine is the Kingdom
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
.....................................................Life is very long
Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
.....................................................For Thine is the Kingdom
For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.