Trolly's comment on my More Dead Sheep post got me thinking about T.S.Elliot and his Whispers of Immortality.

I rather like the way Elliot discusses his fellow poets and their attitudes to life and death:

WEBSTER was much possessed by death
And saw the skull beneath the skin;
And breastless creatures under ground
Leaned backward with a lipless grin.

Daffodil bulbs instead of balls
Stared from the sockets of the eyes!
He knew that thought clings round dead limbs
Tightening its lusts and luxuries.

Donne, I suppose, was such another
Who found no substitute for sense,
To seize and clutch and penetrate;
Expert beyond experience,

He knew the anguish of the marrow
The ague of the skeleton;
No contact possible to flesh
Allayed the fever of the bone.

Clever stuff. Wish I'd written those words...

I'm not which of Elliot's works is my favourite, though I am fond of The Hippopotamus and Sweeney among the Nightingales.