The Hollow Men

The eyes are not here

There are no eyes here

In this valley of dying stars

In this hollow valley

This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms



In this last of meeting places

We grope together

And avoid speech

Gathered on this beach of the tumid river



Sightless, unless

The eyes reappear

As the perpetual star

Multifoliate rose

Of death's twilight kingdom

The hope only

Of empty men.

—T.S. Eliot, "The Hollow Men," stanza IV (1925)