Philip Larkin

In frames as large as rooms that face all
And block the ends of streets with giant loaves,
Screen graves with custard, cover slums with
Of motor-oil and cuts of salmon,

Lambs that learn to walk in
When their bleating clouds the
Meet a vast unwelcome,
Nothing but a sunless glare

What are days for
Days are where we live
They come, they wake
Time and time over

Down stucco sidestreets,
Where light is
And afternoon
Brings lights on in

There is an evening coming
Across the fields, one never seen before,
That lights no lamps
Silken it seems at a distance,

Cut grass lies frail:
Brief is the
Mown stalks exhale
Long, long the

Slowly the women file to where he
Upright in rimless glasses, silver hair,
Dark suit, white collar
Stewards

Boys dream of native girls who bring breadfruit,     Whatever they are,
As bribes to teach them how to
Sixteen sexual positions on the sand;
This makes them join (the boys) the tennis club,

"Of course I was drugged, and so heavily I did not regainconsciousness until the next morning
I was horrified todiscover that I had been ruined, and for some days I was inconsolable,and cried like a child to be killed or sent back to my ...

Closed like confessionals, they
Loud noons of cities, giving
None of the glances they absorb
Light glossy grey, arms on a plaque,

Once I am sure there's nothing going on I step inside, letting the door thud shut
Another church: matting, seats, and stone,
And little books; sprawlings of flowers, cut For Sunday, brownish now; some brass and stuff Up at the holy end; ...

'Dockery was junior to you,
Wasn't he
' said the Dean
'His son's here now