And The Waste Land,
A poet inclined to Buddhism,
Indian vision and wisdom,
Western and allegorical,
Symbolical and mythical
And mystical.
Conversational in style,
It is imagistic and symbolical
A heap of broken ideas and dreams,
Falling images,
A poem of resurrection and rejuvenation,
Rebuilding and reconstruction.
A poem of loss and fall,
Totter and shattering of dreams,
The desire to rebuild, reconstruct the images,
The Waste Land is a post-war picture,
The aftermath of war.
And in the midst of destruction and casualty,
Bombardment and shelling,
He wants to rebuild and reconstruct
The images shattered.
It is but the sadhna bhumi, the Himalayan spots
Of sadhna which but bails out
With the thunder,
The thunder
Appalling with lightening and rains.
What did Brahma, Vishnu, Maheshwara,
How the Trinity worked upon,
The tejas of that,
How the miracle and prophecy worked it
With the thunder, the clouds laughing?
The clouds gathered over Himavant
And it rained,
Rained to vegetate the waste land,
Ganga got it loosened from
The locks of Shiva
And Bhagirath did the penance to absolve
The sins of the Sagar sons.
Indra, Varuna, grant you the prayer,
Indra, Varuna,
Da, datta, dayadhvam, damayata,
Shantih shantih shantih,
After the prayer for rains and fertility,
Eliot as pundit sprinkling holy water
With the shantih mantras.