Violet Hour

Chapter 11. "Violet Hour"
*Please note, there is one stanza missing which will be fixed in a future release.
In this segment from "The Fire Sermon" of The Waste Land, T.S. Eliot introduces Tiresias, the mythological prophet who embodies dual genders, serving as the narrative’s omniscient observer. The passage begins with the "violet hour," an evocative time of transition from day to evening, paralleling the shift from work to personal life. Tiresias, observing the mundane life of a typist, depicts a scene that soon evolves into an encounter with a "young man carbuncular," a lower-class clerk whose presumptuousness and lack of refinement are starkly portrayed.
The interaction between the typist and the clerk is mechanical and dispassionate; it is an act devoid of romance or mutual desire, reflecting the poem's broader themes of alienation and the mechanical nature of human relations in modernity. The typist's response to the encounter, her glance in the mirror and her thought that she’s "glad it’s over," reveals her detachment and resignation, suggesting that such soulless encounters are a routine part of her existence.
Eliot uses Tiresias as a conduit to explore these deeply personal yet universally emblematic scenes, emphasizing the decay and disillusionment of the human spirit in the modern city. The passage ends by shifting back to broader, more lyrical reflections on the city and its fleeting moments of beauty amid decay, illustrated by the juxtaposition of everyday city sounds with the distant memory of music, resonating with the classical grandeur of Ionian white and gold. This part of the poem layers personal despair with cultural decay, interweaving contemporary London with allusions to historical and mythological depths.
The Waste Land
Produced by Kenneth Marshall
Poetry by T.S. Eliot
Music Inspired by Sun Kil Moon ‪@caldoverderecords‬
Produced with A.I. using Udio Music ‪@udio_music‬
x.com/kenrmarshall
At the violet hour, when the eyes and back
Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits
Like a taxi throbbing waiting,
I Tiresias, though blind, throbbing between two lives,
Old man with wrinkled female breasts, can see
At the violet hour, the evening hour that strives
Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea,
The typist home at teatime, clears her breakfast, lights
Her stove, and lays out food in tins.
Out of the window perilously spread
Her drying combinations touched by the sun’s last rays,
On the divan are piled (at night her bed)
Stockings, slippers, camisoles, and stays.
I Tiresias, old man with wrinkled dugs
Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest-
I too awaited the expected guest.
He, the young man carbuncular, arrives,
A small house agent’s clerk, with one bold stare,
One of the low on whom assurance sits
As a silk hat on a Bradford millionaire.
The time is now propitious, as he guesses,
The meal is ended, she is bored and tired,
Endeavours to engage her in caresses
Which still are unreproved, if undesired.
Flushed and decided, he assaults at once;
Exploring hands encounter no defence;
His vanity requires no response,
And makes a welcome of indifference.
(And I Tiresias have foresuffered all
Enacted on this same divan or bed;
I who have sat by Thebes below the wall
And walked among the lowest of the dead.)
Bestows one final patronising kiss,
And gropes his way, finding the stairs unlit . . .
She turns and looks a moment in the glass,
Hardly aware of her departed lover;
Her brain allows one half-formed thought to pass:
'Well now that’s done: and I’m glad it’s over.’
When lovely woman stoops to folly and
Paces about her room again, alone,
She smooths her hair with automatic hand,
And puts a record on the gramophone.
‘This music crept by me upon the waters’
And along the Strand, up Queen Victoria Street.
O City city, I can sometimes hear
Beside a public bar in Lower Thames Street,
The pleasant whining of a mandoline
And a clatter and a chatter from within
Where fishmen lounge at noon: where the walls
Of Magnus Martyr hold
Inexplicable splendour of Ionian white and gold.