T.S. Eliot The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

You know when you’re reading a poem and it’s really hitting you and you know how and why and what it’s saying because it’s saying it to you and you’re not second-guessing because it doesn’t really matter what anyone else insists the poem is saying because this is what it’s saying to you!

And it’s swirling around in a wonderful burst of colors and feelings in your head

and then you get to this one line.

And it all kind of halts. Not in a confusing and dead-end sort of way, just in a serene indefinite sort of pause. There’s all this stardust and blue-ish-pinkish-purple swirlies suspended around you and this one line

Do I dare
Disturb the Universe?

Just kind of reverberates around you. Not just around you, but also within you.
And before that line, you knew exactly where you had been and how you were feeling and where you were going when you were reading the poem. But now the words have hit this chord that you can play well enough, but it can’t be fooled by your attempted manipulations to integrate it into the rest of the rhythm because this chord stands alone.
It is meant to be played alone.

So you play it over and over again

read it over and over again

feel it over and over again

Do I dare
Disturb the Universe?

And you can’t really explain why you love the line so much, just that you do, and you’re not sure exactly what you think it means and where it’s trying to take you but for now it fills you up with this warm swirl of blues and pinks and purples and stardust and

yeah.

I just really love this line.