But at my back

The allusion is to Andrew Marvell, To His Coy Mistress (c1650), the most famous example of a carpe diem ("seize the day") poem, in which the poet tries to seduce his lady friend by warning her of the rapid passing of time:

But at my back I always hear
Time's wingèd chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.

In Eliot's London, the loveless seduction takes place not to the sound of beating wings, but to the rattle of bones, an obvious symbol of death and decay. The allusion is repeated a few lines later, when time's chariot is brought into the twentieth century, feathers being replaced with the sound of horns and motors.

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