On this day in 1888 T.S. Eliot began to count the silverware

Poet Thomas Stearns Eliot was born on September 26, 1888 in St. Louis, Missouri. After living most of his adult life in England, Eliot, to his evident relief, had little trace of a Midwestern accent. You can celebrate his birthday by listening to him read “The Love Song of J. Aflred Prufrock” and then re-read it to yourself.

For I have known them all already, known them all:
Have known the evening, morning, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
\So how should I presume?

For more readings from Eliot vist the Poetry Archive.