The title, "Gerontion," comes from a T.S. Eliot poem by the same name, published in 1920. In ancient Greek, it means "Little Old Man," and it opens with the speaker describing himself as "an old man in a dry month ... waiting for rain...." Like the more famous Eliot poem from the same period, "The Waste Land," this one contains ruminations about sexuality, and religious disillusion and despair. A pointed passage is: "After such knowledge, what forgiveness? Think now / History has many cunning passages, contrived corridors, / And issues, deceives with whispering ambitions, / Guides us by vanities."