{
 "id": "t-s-eliot/whispers-of-immortality",
 "title": "Whispers of Immortality",
 "poet": "T. S. Eliot",
 "poet_slug": "t-s-eliot",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Poems",
 "book_slug": "poems-1920",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 9,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "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": {
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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": 32,
  "n_stanzas": 8,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 44,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Webster was much possessed by death",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And saw the skull beneath the skin;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And breastless creatures under ground",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Leaned backward with a lipless grin.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Daffodil bulbs instead of balls",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Stared from the sockets of the eyes!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He knew that thought clings round dead limbs",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Tightening its lusts and luxuries.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Donne, I suppose, was such another",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who found no substitute for sense;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To seize and clutch and penetrate,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Expert beyond experience,",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "He knew the anguish of the marrow",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The ague of the skeleton;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No contact possible to flesh",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Allayed the fever of the bone.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Grishkin is nice: her Russian eye",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is underlined for emphasis;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Uncorseted, her friendly bust",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Gives promise of pneumatic bliss.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The couched Brazilian jaguar",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Compels the scampering marmoset",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With subtle effluence of cat;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Grishkin has a maisonette;",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The sleek Brazilian jaguar",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Does not in its arboreal gloom",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Distil so rank a feline smell",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As Grishkin in a drawing-room.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And even the Abstract Entities",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Circumambulate her charm;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But our lot crawls between dry ribs",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To keep our metaphysics warm.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}