The action takes place in England after the First World War. The poem is based on the myth of the search for the Holy Grail and the legend of the poor fisherman. Parts of the poem are fragmented and do not form unity.

The poem begins with an epigraph - the myth of Sibyl. She wished herself eternal life, forgetting to wish her eternal youth: “And I also saw Kumsky Sibyl in a bottle. The children asked her: “Sibyl, what do you want?”, And she answered: “I want to die.”

I part. Burial of the dead

The fierce month of April makes nature wake up from a winter's sleep: flowers and trees grow from the dead earth. In the city of Starnberger See there is a downpour. Marie and a friend are sitting in a cafe and talking. Marie talks about how she rode in the mountains on a cousin's sled.

The author calls the son of man to come to where the dead tree does not give a shadow. He promises to show fear - a handful of dust.

In part I, Sibyl turns into a fortuneteller Madame Sozostris. She has a cold, but, nevertheless, makes a prediction on the cards to the person who comes to her. He must die from the water: “Here,” she says, “here is your card - a drowned man, a Phoenician sailor ... / But I do not see the Hanged Man. Your death is from water. ”

The image of London - the ghostly city where the war took place. The sailor calls out his acquaintance Stetson and asks him if the dead man who was buried in the garden a year ago has sprouted: “Will he flourish this year - / Or maybe an unexpected frost hit his bed?” The sailor does not receive an answer.

II part.Game of chess

Spouses play chess in silence, waiting for a knock on the door. They have nothing to talk about with each other. The room is described: an aquarium without fish, a picture depicting the transformation of Philomela into a nightingale, scolded by a rapist king. Finally, the acquaintance of Lil comes in, and the hostess advises her that when she comes to Albert’s husband from the front, she tidy herself up, insert her jaw, otherwise he will go to another:

Lil, wipe it all out and do plugins.
He said: I can’t look at you.
And I can’t, I say, think about Albert,
He ditched three years in the trenches, he wants to live,
Not with you, so there will be others.

Lil was 31 years old, she gave birth to five children, and the last time was at death. On Sunday, Albert returns.

III part. Fire sermon

At night, a fisherman fishes from the banks of the Thames. He thinks of King Tyreus who dishonored Philomelos.

Mr. Eugenides, the “one-eyed merchant” from Madame Sozostris’s fortune-telling, invites a man to the Kennon Street Hotel.

In this part of the poem, Sibyl is the feminine hypostasis of the blind soothsayer Tiresias:

I, Tiresias, the prophet trembling between the sexes
Blind old man with wrinkled female breasts.
In the purple hour, I see how things are
Having undressed, people are drawn to houses ...

Tiresias foresees the meeting of the typist and the sailor: he caresses her, she passionately endures his affection. When the sailor leaves, the typist sighs with relief and turns on the gramophone. The typist recalls the facts of her biography. She was depraved in Richmond, in Murgait, on Morgate Beach.

The third part ends with a call to God to free a burning person from asceticism.

IV part. Death from water

Phlebus the Phoenician dies in water in two weeks. His body is swallowing the sea current. The author calls on everyone to honor the dead Phleb: “Remember Phleb: and he was full of strength and beauty.”

V part. What the thunder said

The last part of the poem begins with a description of the barren land: peals of thunder in the dead mountains, there is no water, only rocks, stones, sand underfoot, dry grass, cracks in the soil.

Someone else is walking next to two heroes across the barren land. But they do not know him, they do not see his face. They hear peals of thunder in the purple sky, they see an incomprehensible city above the mountains, pass Jerusalem, Athens, ghostly London. They see in the crevice of the rocks an empty chapel with broken windows and a cemetery:

In this putrid hollow between the mountains
Grass sings in the weak moonlight
The drooping graves near the chapel -
This is an empty chapel, the dwelling of the wind,
The windows are broken, the door is swinging.
And only here grass grows and rain begins.

And then the thunder says: “Yes. What have we given? ” - the blood of Jesus Christ, the "blood of a trembling heart" that no one will find. But many seek it, considering the blood of Jesus the key to life.

The poem ends with the fisherman sitting by the canal, fishing and thinking whether he will restore order in his lands and that the London bridge is collapsing.