How to Format Lyrics:

  • Type out all lyrics, even repeating song parts like the chorus
  • Lyrics should be broken down into individual lines
  • Use section headers above different song parts like [Verse], [Chorus], etc.
  • Use italics (<i>lyric</i>) and bold (<b>lyric</b>) to distinguish between different vocalists in the same song part
  • If you don’t understand a lyric, use [?]

To learn more, check out our transcription guide or visit our transcribers forum

About

Genius Annotation

The title of this poem is a satirical reference to Wordsworth’s “Ode: Intimations of Immortality.” Like Eliot’s other satirical quatrains, “Mr Eliot’s Sunday Morning Service,” and “Sweeney Among the Nightingales,” “Whispers of Immortality” was completed during the summer of 1918 and first published in the September 1918 edition of Chicago’s Little Review. The poem deals with both the physicality and the philosophy of death.

Ezra Pound would take a key role in editing these poems and directing Eliot’s reading, prefiguring his important work in shaping The Waste Land into the poem we know today.

Pound pushed Eliot strongly toward the work of Théophile Gautier, from whom Eliot picked up the sharp tetrameter quatrains nd esoteric vocabulary. There is an ABCB rhyme scheme that isn’t rigid, The satirical rhymes in the poems are gleaned from one of Eliot’s biggest influences at the time, Jules Laforgue.

Structurally the poem is perfectly symmetrical, in two parts. Each comprises four quatrains, that is four-lined stanzas. The first four deal with death and the second four with eroticism. The metre is broadly iambic tetrameter, that is, four-metrical feet per line. There is a loose ABCB rhyme scheme.

The voice is that of a third person narrator who is clearly the poet, and the tone wry and darkly humorous, suited for the acabre s;ubject matter.

Gautier

Q&A

Find answers to frequently asked questions about the song and explore its deeper meaning

Comments