Eliot began working on this poem between 1910- 1911 and finally it was published in 1915. The poem appeared in Poetry with the help of Ezra Pound. .
The poem raises several philosophical and social questions, concerning time, the evaluation and the meaning of our lives. The narrator has a strong desire to change the world, and he thinks he can do so. Though, time and experience made him realise that the ambition of youth is an illusion. The ignorance is what makes youth live and time brings the loss of this ignorance but a gain of wisdom. Society is portrayed as an unreal, dreamlike world where one can preserve the ignorance of youth. He is meditating upon whether to choose to live in a dreamlike, youthful society or gain knowledge but faces the consequences of death. .
The narrator ponders upon that "There will be time to murder and create " (28), asserting that he has power in himself to ruin, to rebuilt and change and goes on saying that there will be "Time for you and time for me,/And time for yet a hundred indecisions - (31-32), emphasizing the ability to reconsider one's thoughts and actions. Finally, he concludes that there will be time for indecisions, "And for a hundred visions and revisions,/Before the taking of toast and tea - (33-34). The narrator is suggesting that one can think about his impact on the world and he can actually go back and fix his mistakes. His perspective of life is through the filtered window of society. Society has had a dampening effect on the narrator's perspectives, as he laments,.
"For I have known them all already, known them all:.
Have known the evenings, mornings, and afternoons,.
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;.
I know the voices dying and with a dying fall.
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume? ." (49-54).
This passage shows that because he has let society dictate his life, he has experienced a type of inner death.