Thanks. I especially like the "thief in the night" allusion.
 
JLC
 
W. Freind wrote:
>
> On Wed, 10 Mar 1999, Yakob Leib ha Kohain [Jacob Leib Cohen, Ph.D.] wrote:
>
> > I once attended a reading by TSE at the University of Chicago in the
> > mid-1950's. During the Q & A at the end, someone asked him what some
> > line or other meant, to which he replied (and here I quote from memory,
> > but the gist is accurate), "A poet, including myself, often writes from
> > inspiration and has no more idea what a poem may mean than its reader."
>
> Eliot has a slew of lines like that. He observes somewhere that if (!) he
> ever republished "Ash Wednesday" he might include an epigraph from Byron's
> _Don Juan_:
>
>         Some have accused me of a strange design
>         Against the creed and morals of the land
>         And trace it in this poem, every line.
>         I don't pretend I quite understand
>         My own meaning when I would be *very* fine;
>         But the fact is I have nothing planned
>         Except perhaps to be a moment merry...
>
> He also has a line about meaning serving as the bone to distract the
> watchdog while the poem burgles the house. Both of those offer a pretty
> interesting commentary on the crossword puzzle approach many (most?)
> critics and readers have brought to _The Waste Land_.
>
> Bill Freind