其实，我们国内的诗界对所谓艾略特的影响一个世纪诗风的这些语言地位是有所领悟的。如大陆先锋诗歌中也大量出现的诘问和否定，怀疑和虚无，连贯、持续的节奏控制等等……这些是艾略特带给我们的宝贵语言经验。可惜，在用汉语领略这位诗歌大师的作品时，我们被忽略了语言的精髓，忽略了艾略特的精神实质。相信真正的诗歌同仁会认同我的话。

April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing 
……
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.

   What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow.
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only（不能）
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,（破碎）
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only（只有）
There is shadow under this red rock, 
……             

……

Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not（不能）
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing(我不知悉）
Looking into the heart of light, the silence.
Oed' und leer das Meer.

   Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante,
Had a bad cold, nevertheless 

   Unreal City,（虚无之城）
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn, （棕雾之下）

          II. A Game of Chess

The Chair she sat in, like a burnished throne,
Glowed on the marble, where the glass
Held up by standards wrought with fruited vines
……
Unstoppered, lurked her strange synthetic perfumes（塞子不封）
Unguent, powdered, or liquid—troubled, confused（不化之胶）
And drowned the sense in odours; stirred by the air
That freshened from the window, these ascended
In fattening the prolonged candle-flames,
……

   "What are you thinking of? What thinking? What?（大量的疑问句式——以下反复出现，不再提示）
"I never know what you are thinking. Think."

   I think we are in rats' alley
Where the dead men lost their bones.

   "What is that noise?"
                              The wind under the door.
"What is that noise now? What is the wind doing?"
                               Nothing again nothing.
                                                            "Do
"You know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember
"Nothing?"

   I remember
Those are pearls that were his eyes.
"Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your head?"
                                                                          But

O O O O that Shakespearean Rag—
It's so elegant
So intelligent
"What shall I do now? What shall I do?"
"I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street
"With my hair down, so. What shall we do to-morrow?
"What shall we ever do?"
……
I didn't mince my words, I said to her myself,


HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME（快一点时间到了：节奏的鼓点）



……

He said, I swear, I can't bear to look at you.
And no more can't I, I said, and think of poor Albert,
……

HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
If you don't like it you can get on with it, I said,
Others can pick and choose if you can't.
But if Albert makes off, it won't be for lack of telling.

……
I can't help it, she said, pulling a long face,
It's them pills I took, to bring it off, she said.
……
Well, if Albert won't leave you alone, there it is, I said,
What you get married for if you don't want children?
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
Well, that Sunday Albert was home, they had a hot gammon,
And they asked me in to dinner, to get the beauty of it hot—
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
Goodnight Bill. Goodnight Lou. Goodnight May. Goodnight.
Ta ta. Goodnight. Goodnight.
Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night.

                  III. The Fire Sermon

The river's tent is broken: the last fingers of leaf 
……

   Unreal City
Under the brown fog of a winter noon 
……
I made no comment. What should I resent?"

   "On Margate Sands.
I can connect
Nothing with nothing.
The broken fingernails of dirty hands.
My people humble people who expect
Nothing."



                  la la

   To Carthage then I came

   Burning burning burning burning
O Lord Thou pluckest me out
O Lord Thou pluckest

burning 

IV. Death by Water

Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell
And the profit and loss. 
                                  ……
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you

        V. What the Thunder Said

After the torchlight red on sweaty faces
After the frosty silence in the gardens


After the agony in stony places
The shouting and the crying
Prison and palace and reverberation
Of thunder of spring over distant mountains
He who was living is now dead


We who were living are now dying
With a little patience

   Here is no water but only rock
Rock and no water and the sandy road
The road winding above among the mountain
Which are mountains of rock without water
If there were water we should stop and drink
Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think
Sweat is dry and feet are in the sand
If there were only water amongst the rock
Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit
Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit
There is not even silence in the mountains
But dry sterile thunder without rain
There is not even solitude in the mountains
But red sullen faces sneer and snarl
From doors of mudcracked houses
                                           If there were water
   And no rock
   If there were rock
   And also water
   And water
   A spring
   A pool among the rock
   If there were the sound of water only
   Not the cicada
   And dry grass singing
   But sound of water over a rock
   Where the hermit-thrush sings in the pine trees
   Drip drop drip drop drop drop drop
   But there is no water

   Who is the third who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and I together
But when I look ahead up the white road



……
I do not know whether a man or a woman


—But who is that on the other side of you?

   What is that sound high in the air 
……

There is the empty chapel, only the wind's home
It has no windows, and the door swings,
Dry bones can harm no one.
Only a cock stood on the rooftree
Co co rico co co rico
……
In our empty rooms
DA
Dayadhvam: I have heard the key
Turn in the door once and turn once only
We think of the key, each in his prison
Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison
Only at nightfall, aethereal rumours
Revive for a moment a broken Coriolanus
……
These fragments I have shored against my ruins
Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo's mad againe.
Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.
            Shantih shantih shantih（出人意外的平安——怀疑语义）