Philip Larkin
What are days for? Days are where we live. — Philip Larkin, from “Days,” The Whitsun Weddings. (Faber & Faber; Later Printing edition January 1971) Originally published 1964.
Category: The Movement
Philip Larkin
What will survive of us is love. — Philip Larkin, from “An Arundel Tomb,” The Whitsun Weddings. (Faber & Faber; Later Printing edition January 1971) Originally published 1964.
Philip Larkin
They say eyes clear with age, As dew clarifies air To sharpen evenings, As if time put an edge Round the last shape of things To show them there; The many-levelled trees, To long soft tides of grass Wrinkling away the gold Wind-ridden waves—all these, They say, come back into focus As we grow old.… Continue reading Philip Larkin
Philip Larkin
This is the first thing I have understood: Time is the echo of an axe Within a wood. — Philip Larkin, “XXVI,” The North Ship. (Faber & Faber; New edition edition April 1974) Originally published April 1966.
Philip Larkin
It will be spring soon— And I, whose childhood Is a forgotten boredom, Feel like a child Who comes on a scene Of adult reconciling, And can understand nothing But the unusual laughter, And starts to be happy. Philip Larkin, from “Coming,” Collected Poems (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2003)
Philip Larkin
Aubade I work all day, and get half-drunk at night. Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare. In time the curtain-edges will grow light. Till then I see what’s really always there: Unresting death, a whole day nearer now, Making all thought impossible but how And where and when I shall myself die. Arid… Continue reading Philip Larkin
The Vale of Soul-Making 