Now that lilacs are in bloom

The Bunch of Lilacs

Now that lilacs are in bloom
She has a bowl of lilacs in her room
And twists one in her fingers while she talks.

“Ah my friend, you do not know, you do not know
What life is, you who hold it in your hands—”
(Slowly twisting the lilac stalks);
“You let it flow from you, you let it flow,
And youth is cruel, and has no remorse,
And smiles at situations which it cannot see.”
I smile, of course,
And go on drinking tea.

“Yet with these April sunsets, that somehow recall
My buried life, and Paris in the spring,
I feel immeasurably at peace, and find the world
To be wonderful and youthful, after all.”

Excerpt From  Portrait of a Lady  by T. S. Eliot
Image The Bunch of Lilacs by James Tissot (1836–1902) public domain

Edited 2/28/15 

Portrait of a Lady

  by T. S. Eliot