Parallel Lines Touching (Pt. deux)

Without the ability to compare Ulysses to works of poetry I really would have no claim at all.  I mentioned Ulysses sounding a lot like The Waste Land few times previously so I thought this would good opportunity to delve into that thought a little deeper.  Here are two excerpts, one is from Ulysses and the other is from the Waste Land.  Try an guess which is poetry and which is prose.


text 1
The river's tent is broken: the last fingers of leaf 
Clutch and sink into the wet bank. The wind 
Crosses the brown land, unheard. The nymphs are departed. 
Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song. 
The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers, 
Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends
Or other testimony of summer nights. The nymphs are departed. 
And their friends, the loitering heirs of city directors; 
Departed, have left no addresses. 
By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept. . . 
Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song, 
Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or long. 
But at my back in a cold blast I hear 
The rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear. 
A rat crept softly through the vegetation 
Dragging its slimy belly on the bank 
While I was fishing in the dull canal 
On a winter evening round behind the gashouse 
Musing upon the king my brother's wreck 
And on the king my father's death before him. 
White bodies naked on the low damp ground 
And bones cast in a little low dry garret, 
Rattled by the rat's foot only, year to year. 
But at my back from time to time I hear 
The sound of horns and motors, which shall bring 
Sweeney to Mrs. Porter in the spring. 
O the moon shone bright on Mrs. Porter 
And on her daughter 
They wash their feet in soda water 
Et O ces voix d'enfants, chantant dans la coupole!

text 2 A side eye at my Hamlet hat.
If I were suddenly naked here as I sit?
I am not. 
Across the sands of the world,
5followed by the sun's flaming sword, to the west, 
trekking to evening lands.
She trudges, schlepps, trains, drags, trascines her load.
A tide westering, moondrawn, in her wake.
Tides, myriadisland, within her, blood not mine, 
10oinoa ponton, a winedark sea.
Behold the handmaid of the moon.
In sleep the wet sign calls her hour, bids her rise.
Bridebed, childbed, bed of death, ghostcandled.
Omis caro ad te veniet.
15He comes, pale vampire, through storm his eyes, 
his bat sails bloodying the sea,
mouth to her mouth's kiss.

Both works employ a stream-of-consciousness style giving the reader snap shots of various scenes so you are never sure of the exact setting, use different languages, and utilize various metaphors to bring home a point or image (ex. lines 1 and 2 in the first text and 15, 16, and 17 in the second).  Obviously, these two passages do not make it completely clear all the similarities the can be found between the two works.  Other connections include: copious references to Greek mythology, lack of normal sentence structure, and (of course) being in free verse.  I am not saying that T.S. Eliot and James Joyce had the exact same writing style, but they overlap in so many areas.  Both authors cross the boundaries between prose and poetry.  The main difference is length Ulysses is over 1000 pages while The Waste Land (though it is significantly long) pales in comparison.