The ‘Boston Evening Transcript’ Lyrics
Sway in the wind like a field of ripe corn.
When evening quickens faintly in the street,
Wakening the appetites of life in some
And to others bringing the Boston Evening Transcript,
I mount the steps and ring the bell, turning
Wearily, as one would turn to nod good-bye to Rochefoucauld,
If the street were time and he at the end of the street,
And I say, "Cousin Harriet, here is the Boston Evening Transcript."
About
The Boston Evening Transcript was a daily afternoon newspaper in Boston, Massachusetts, published from July 24, 1830, to April 30, 1941. It is most noted for publishing am early version of the poem “America The Beautiful” by Katharine Lee Bates on November 19, 1904. In Eliot’s day, it was rather banal in content, providing features such as “Suburban Scenes”, Saturday Night Thoughts, book reviews, music criticism and writings on the once popular card-game bridge (yawn).
The poem, which uses some techniques of Imagism, was published in Prufrock and Other Observations in 1917. According to Terri Mester, Eliot wrote “a series of satirical vignettes on contemporary mores and New England manners, presumably between relatives and people the poet knew in Boston and Cambridge”. This poem appears with Eliot’s other satirical verse, including “Cousin Nancy” and “Aunt Helen”, which ridicules high-bourgeois society values and personages.
Source: Terri Mester, Movement and Modernism: Years, Eliot, Lawrence, Williams and Early 20th Century Dance (University of Arkansas Press, 1997), 70.
Q&A
Find answers to frequently asked questions about the song and explore its deeper meaning
- 3.Preludes
- 6.The ‘Boston Evening Transcript’
- 7.Aunt Helen
- 8.Cousin Nancy
- 10.Hysteria
