{
 "id": "t-s-eliot/sweeney-erect",
 "title": "Sweeney Erect",
 "poet": "T. S. Eliot",
 "poet_slug": "t-s-eliot",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Poems",
 "book_slug": "poems-1920",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 2,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": "And the trees about me, / Let them be dry and leafless; let the rocks / Groan with continual surges; and behind me / Make all a desolation. Look, look, wenches!",
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1920,
  "venue": "Poems (1920)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/poems19091925030616mbp"
  ]
 },
 "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": 44,
  "n_stanzas": 11,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 40,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Paint me a cavernous waste shore",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Cast in the unstilted Cyclades,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Paint me the bold anfractuous rocks",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Faced by the snarled and yelping seas.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Display me Aeolus above",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Reviewing the insurgent gales",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Which tangle Ariadne’s hair",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And swell with haste the perjured sails.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Morning stirs the feet and hands",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(Nausicaa and Polypheme),",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Gesture of orangutan",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Rises from the sheets in steam.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "This withered root of knots of hair",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Slitted below and gashed with eyes,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "This oval O cropped out with teeth:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The sickle motion from the thighs",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Jackknifes upward at the knees",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then straightens out from heel to hip",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Pushing the framework of the bed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And clawing at the pillow slip.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Sweeney addressed full length to shave",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Broadbottomed, pink from nape to base,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Knows the female temperament",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And wipes the suds around his face.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "(The lengthened shadow of a man",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is history, said Emerson",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Who had not seen the silhouette",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of Sweeney straddled in the sun).",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Tests the razor on his leg",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Waiting until the shriek subsides.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The epileptic on the bed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Curves backward, clutching at her sides.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The ladies of the corridor",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Find themselves involved, disgraced,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Call witness to their principles",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And deprecate the lack of taste",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Observing that hysteria",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Might easily be misunderstood;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Mrs. Turner intimates",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It does the house no sort of good.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But Doris, towelled from the bath,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Enters padding on broad feet,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Bringing sal volatile",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And a glass of brandy neat.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}