So rudely forced

Cf. Part III, l. 195. [Eliot's note] The reference in this note and the previous also recall the following lines from The Hollow Men: "As wind in dry grass/ Or rats' feet over broken glass/ In our dry cellar"

reference topics

Ovid's Metamorphoses, book IV, Philomela
Philomela and the Nightingale
The Hollow Men
back to "The Waste Land"