{
 "id": "t-s-eliot/preludes",
 "title": "Preludes",
 "poet": "T. S. Eliot",
 "poet_slug": "t-s-eliot",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Prufrock and Other Observations",
 "book_slug": "prufrock-and-other-observations",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 2,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1915,
  "venue": "Blast 2 (July 1915)",
  "note": "Collected in Prufrock and Other Observations (1917).",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/literature-and-writing/preludes-t-s-eliot",
   "https://tseliot.com/foundation/eliot-in-the-wartime-classroom-1916-1919/"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
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  "repo": "standardebooks/t-s-eliot_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
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   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/009592742",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1321",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001835100",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100218549",
   "https://archive.org/details/poems19091925030616mbp",
   "https://archive.org/details/collectedpoems1900elio",
   "https://www.fadedpage.com/showbook.php?pid=20200705",
   "https://archive.org/details/poemswritteninea00elio",
   "https://theworld.com/~raparker/exploring/tseliot/works/poems/eliot-harvard-poems.html"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-12"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 54,
  "n_stanzas": 7,
  "n_parts": 4,
  "longest_line_chars": 44,
  "max_indent": 0
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 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [
  {
   "ordinal": "I",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    0,
    1
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "II",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    1,
    3
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "III",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    3,
    4
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "IV",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    4,
    7
   ]
  }
 ],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "The winter evening settles down",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With smell of steaks in passageways.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Six o’clock.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The burnt-out ends of smoky days.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And now a gusty shower wraps",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The grimy scraps",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of withered leaves about your feet",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And newspapers from vacant lots;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The showers beat",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On broken blinds and chimney-pots,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And at the corner of the street",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A lonely cab-horse steams and stamps.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And then the lighting of the lamps.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The morning comes to consciousness",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of faint stale smells of beer",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From the sawdust-trampled street",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With all its muddy feet that press",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To early coffee-stands.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "With the other masquerades",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That time resumes,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "One thinks of all the hands",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That are raising dingy shades",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In a thousand furnished rooms.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "You tossed a blanket from the bed,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You lay upon your back, and waited;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You dozed, and watched the night revealing",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The thousand sordid images",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of which your soul was constituted;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They flickered against the ceiling.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And when all the world came back",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the light crept up between the shutters,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And you heard the sparrows in the gutters,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You had such a vision of the street",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As the street hardly understands;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sitting along the bed’s edge, where",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You curled the papers from your hair,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or clasped the yellow soles of feet",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the palms of both soiled hands.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "His soul stretched tight across the skies",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That fade behind a city block,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or trampled by insistent feet",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "At four and five and six o’clock;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And short square fingers stuffing pipes,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And evening newspapers, and eyes",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Assured of certain certainties,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The conscience of a blackened street",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Impatient to assume the world.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I am moved by fancies that are curled",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Around these images, and cling:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The notion of some infinitely gentle",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Infinitely suffering thing.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The worlds revolve like ancient women",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Gathering fuel in vacant lots.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}