"On Margate Sands"
Eliot's first draft of this stanza read:
"I was to be grateful. On Margate sands
There were many others. I can connect
Nothing with nothing. He had
I still feel the pressure of dirty hand"(V. Eliot 53).
He deleted a good portion of it so that it read:
"On Margate sands.
I can connect
Nothing wth nothing.
The broken fingernails of dirty hands.
My people are plain people, who expect
Nothing"(V. Eliot 53).
The first version seems almost oppressive and close, while the second is more bleak. This bleakness seems to be what Eliot was aiming for when he edited this stanza. Rather than a feeling of being crowded, he wanted to highlight the "nothing"(53) feeling the speaker experiences on Margate sands.
This website the work of Abigail L. Bunting
"I was to be grateful. On Margate sands
There were many others. I can connect
Nothing with nothing. He had
I still feel the pressure of dirty hand"(V. Eliot 53).
He deleted a good portion of it so that it read:
"On Margate sands.
I can connect
Nothing wth nothing.
The broken fingernails of dirty hands.
My people are plain people, who expect
Nothing"(V. Eliot 53).
The first version seems almost oppressive and close, while the second is more bleak. This bleakness seems to be what Eliot was aiming for when he edited this stanza. Rather than a feeling of being crowded, he wanted to highlight the "nothing"(53) feeling the speaker experiences on Margate sands.
This website the work of Abigail L. Bunting