The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (Excerpt)

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons; I know the voices dying with a dying fall Beneath the music from a farther room; So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all— The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase, And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin, When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall, Then how should I begin To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?

And how should I presume?

• TS Eliot