Philip Larkin

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

That Whitsun,
I was late getting away:
Not till
One-twenty on the sunlit

Love, we must part now: do not let it be Calamitious and bitter
In the past There has been too much moonlight and self-pity:
Let us have done with it: for now at last Never has sun more boldly paced the sky,
Never were hearts more e...

Marrying left your maiden name disused
Its five light sounds no longer mean your face,
Your voice, and all your variants of grace;
For since you were so thankfully

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

What do they think has happened, the old fools,
To make them like this
Do they somehow
It's more grown-up when your mouth hangs open and drools,

Come to Sunny
Laughed the girl on the poster,
Kneeling up on the
In tautened white satin

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

Always too eager for the future,
Pick up bad habits of expectancy
Something is always approaching; every
Till then we say,

At last you yielded up the album,
Once open, sent me distracted
All your
Matt and glossy on the thick black pages

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

The trumpet's voice, loud and authoritative,
Draws me a moment to the lighted
To watch the dancers - all under twenty-five -Solemnly on the beat of happiness
- Or so I fancy, sensing the smoke and sweat,

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

Strange to know nothing, never to be
Of what is true or right or real,
But forced to qualify or so I feel,
Or Well, it does seem so:

My wife and I have asked a crowd of
To come and waste their time and ours:
You'd care to join us
In a pig's arse, friend

Sometimes you hear, fifth-hand,
As epitaph:
He chucked up
And just cleared off,