The Weeping Girl
The Weeping Girl - context Summary
Published in 1920
Published in Eliot's 1920 Poems collection, "The Weeping Girl" frames a brief dramatic scene in which a speaker obsessively imagines a woman’s gestures and a wished-for separation. The poem alternates voyeuristic description with speculative desire for a graceful, unemotional parting, and closes with the speaker’s recurring mental reverie. Its compact narrative and recurring images register regret, aesthetic control, and the persistence of private fantasy.
Read Complete AnalysesStand on the highest pavement of the stair — Lean on a garden urn — Weave, weave the sunlight in your hair — Clasp your flowers to you with a pained surprise — Fling them to the ground and turn With a fugitive resentment in your eyes: But weave, weave the sunlight in your hair. So I would have had him leave, So I would have had her stand and grieve, So he would have left As the soul leaves the body torn and bruised, As the mind deserts the body it has used. I should find Some way incomparably light and deft, Some way we both should understand, Simple and faithless as a smile and a shake of the hand. She turned away, but with the autumn weather Compelled my imagination many days, Many days and many hours: Her hair over her arms and her arms full of flowers. And I wonder how they should have been together! I should have lost a gesture and a pose. Sometimes these cogitations still amaze The troubled midnight, and the noon's repose.
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