{
 "id": "t-s-eliot/rhapsody-on-a-windy-night",
 "title": "Rhapsody on a Windy Night",
 "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": 3,
 "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://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/content/rhapsody-windy-night"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/t-s-eliot_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1567",
   "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": 79,
  "n_stanzas": 8,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 63,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Twelve o’clock.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Along the reaches of the street",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Held in a lunar synthesis,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whispering lunar incantations",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Disolve the floors of memory",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And all its clear relations,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Its divisions and precisions,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Every street lamp that I pass",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Beats like a fatalistic drum,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And through the spaces of the dark",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Midnight shakes the memory",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As a madman shakes a dead geranium.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Half-past one,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The street lamp sputtered,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The street lamp muttered,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The street lamp said,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Regard that woman",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who hesitates toward you in the light of the door",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which opens on her like a grin.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You see the border of her dress",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is torn and stained with sand,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And you see the corner of her eye",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Twists like a crooked pin.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The memory throws up high and dry",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A crowd of twisted things;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A twisted branch upon the beach",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Eaten smooth, and polished",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As if the world gave up",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The secret of its skeleton,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Stiff and white.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A broken spring in a factory yard,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Rust that clings to the form that the strength has left",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hard and curled and ready to snap.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Half-past two,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The street-lamp said,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Remark the cat which flattens itself in the gutter,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Slips out its tongue",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And devours a morsel of rancid butter.”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So the hand of the child, automatic,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Slipped out and pocketed a toy that was running along the quay.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I could see nothing behind that child’s eye.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I have seen eyes in the street",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Trying to peer through lighted shutters,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And a crab one afternoon in a pool,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "An old crab with barnacles on his back,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Gripped the end of a stick which I held him.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Half-past three,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The lamp sputtered,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The lamp muttered in the dark.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The lamp hummed:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Regard the moon,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "La lune ne garde aucune rancune,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She winks a feeble eye,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She smiles into corners.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She smooths the hair of the grass.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The moon has lost her memory.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A washed-out smallpox cracks her face,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Her hand twists a paper rose,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That smells of dust and old Cologne,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She is alone",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With all the old nocturnal smells",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That cross and cross across her brain.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The reminiscence comes",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of sunless dry geraniums",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And dust in crevices,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Smells of chestnuts in the streets",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And female smells in shuttered rooms",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And cigarettes in corridors",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And cocktail smells in bars.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The lamp said,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Four o’clock,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Here is the number on the door.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Memory!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You have the key,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The little lamp spreads a ring on the stair,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Mount.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The bed is open; the toothbrush hangs on the wall,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Put your shoes at the door, sleep, prepare for life.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The last twist of the knife.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}