The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

by T.S Elliot

(collected poem 3)

The winter evening settles down

With smell of steaks in passageways.

Six o'clock.

The burnt-out ends of smoky days.

And now a gusty shower wraps

The grimy scraps

Of withered leaves about your feet

And newspapers from vacant lots;

The showers beat

On broken blinds and chimney-pots,

And at the corner of the street

A lonely cab-horse steams and stamps.

And then the lighting of the lamps.

Let us go then, you and I, 

When the evening is spread out against the sky

   A patient etherised upon a table; 

Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,

The muttering retreats

Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels

And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells

Review:

The theme of this poem is despair and gloom. A man is taking someone out to the city but is very dreary and there is not much happiness. The rhyme scheme is not exact, but there are several rhyming couplets in the freeverse. Due to the fact that the poem is freeverse it does not have exact structure but it  sometimes shows iambic pentameter. This poem contains a lot of imagery, describing the smells, feels, and sights of the world the poem is in. "With smell of steaks in passageways." is a combination of alliteration and assonance. "A patient etherised upon a table" is a metaphor, there is no actual patient, it just comparing that situation to the evening sky.