We are the hollow men
We're the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. (Alas!)

Our dried voices (when we whisper together)
Are quiet (and meaningless) as wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass (in our dry cellar)

Shape without form (shade without colour, paralysed force, gesture without motion)

Let me wear disguises
Rat's coat, crowskin
Behaving as the wind behaves

This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here they receive the supplication of a dead man's hand

Waking alone
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone

The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw

In this last of meeting places
We grope together and avoid speech

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

Not with a bang but a whimper, thank you very much, good night