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Philip Larkin

Philip Larkin

Modesties

Words as plain as hen—birds’ wings
Do not lie,
Do not over—broider things —
Are too shy.
 
Thoughts that shuffle round like pence
Through each reign,
Wear down to their simplest sense
Yet remain.
 
Weeds are not supposed to grow
But by degrees
Some achieve a flower, although
No one sees.

#English #XXCentury

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Other works by Philip Larkin...
The Death of Socrates, by Jacques-Louis David
Ignorance

Strange to know nothing, never to… Of what is true or right or real, But forced to qualify or so I fee… Or Well, it does seem so: Someone must know.
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Why Did I Dream of You Last Night?

Why did I dream of you last night… Now morning is pushing back hair w… Memories strike home, like slaps i… Raised on elbow, I stare at the p… beyond the window.
 1
On Being Twenty-six

I feared these present years, The middle twenties, When deftness disappears, And each event is Freighted with a source—encrusting…
 1
Breadfruit

Boys dream of native girls who bri… Whatever they are, As bribes to teach them how to exe… Sixteen sexual positions on the sa… This makes them join (the boys) th…
Like the Train's Beat

Like the train’s beat Swift language flutters the lips Of the Polish airgirl in the corn… The swinging and narrowing sun Lights her eyelashes, shapes
The Importance of Elsewhere

Lonely in Ireland, since it was n… Strangeness made sense. The salt… Insisting so on difference, made m… Once that was recognised, we were… Their draughty streets, end—on to…
 1
This Is the First Thing

This is the first thing I have understood: Time is the echo of an axe Within a wood.
If Hands Could Free You, Heart

If hands could free you, heart, Where would you fly? Far, beyond every part Of earth this running sky Makes desolate? Would you cross
 1
Woman at a Window, by Caspar David Friedrich
High Windows

When I see a couple of kids And guess he’s fucking her and she… Taking pills or wearing a diaphrag… I know this is paradise Everyone old has dreamed of all th…
 4
Aubade

I work all day, and get half-drunk… Waking at four to soundless dark,… In time the curtain-edges will gro… Till then I see what’s really alw… Unresting death, a whole day neare…
 2
The Spirit Wooed

Once I believed in you, And then you came, Unquestionably new, as fame Had said you were. But that was l… You launched no argument,
 1
At the Moulin Rouge: The Dance, by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Vers de Société

My wife and I have asked a crowd… To come and waste their time and o… You’d care to join us? In a pig’s… Day comes to an end. The gas fire breathes, the trees a…
Age

My age fallen away like white swad… Floats in the middle distance, bec… An inhabited cloud. I bend closer… A lighted tenement scuttling with… O you tall game I tired myself wi…
Take One Home for the Kiddies

On shallow straw, in shadeless gla… Huddled by empty bowls, they sleep… No dark, no dam, no earth, no gras… Mam, get us one of them to keep. Living toys are something novel,
 1
Dublinesque

Down stucco sidestreets, Where light is pewter And afternoon mist Brings lights on in shops Above race—guides and rosaries,



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