These lines came from Eliot's poem Dans le Restaurant written in French mid-1918. The lines in The Waste Land are not an exact translation from the original. The lines from Dans le Restaurant are:

• Phlebas, le Phénicien, pendant quinze jours noyé,
• Oubliait les cris des moutette et la houle de Cornouaille,
• Et les profits et les pertes, et la cargaison d'étain:
• Un courant de sous-mer l'emporta très loin,
• Le repassant aux étapes de sa vie antérieure.
• Figurez-vous donc, c'était un sort pénible;
• Cependant, ce fut jadis un bel homme, de haute taille.

Here is an English translation:

• Phlebas the Phoenician, drowned fifteen days,
• Forgot the cries of gulls and the swells of Cornish seas,
• and the profits and losses and the cargo of tin:
• A current carried him far,
• Took him back to stages of his previous life.
• Imagine it - a terrible end for a man once so handsome and tall.

As used in The Waste Land:

• Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
• Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell
• And the profit and loss.
• A current under sea
• Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
• He passed the stages of his age and youth
• Entering the whirlpool.
• Gentile or Jew
• O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,
• Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.