01c. 1953 ADOften one spends weeks trying to write a poem out of the conscious mind that never comes to anything - these are sort of 'ideal' poems that one feels ought to be written, but don't because (I fancy) they lack the vital spark of self-interest. A 'real' poem is a pleasure to write.Philip Larkin / quote ↗
02c. 1953 ADHow hard it is, to be forced to the conclusion that people should be, nine tenths of the time, left alone! - When there is that in me that longs for absolute commitment. One of the poem-ideas I had was that one could respect only the people who knew that cups had to be washed up and put away after drinking, and knew that a Monday of work follows a Sunday in the water meadows, and that old age with its distorting-mirror memories follows youth and its raw pleasures, but that it's quite impossible to love such people, for what we want in love is release from our beliefs, not confirmation in them. That is where the 'courage of love' comes in - to have the courage to commit yourself to something you don't believe, because it is what - for the moment, anyway - thrills your by its audacity. (Some of the phrasing of this is odd, but it would make a good poem if it had any words...)Philip Larkin / quote ↗
04c. 1953 ADNever such innocence,Never before or since,As changed itself to pastWithout a word--the menLeaving the gardens tidy,The thousands of marriagesLasting a little while longer:Never such innocence again.Philip Larkin / quote ↗
06c. 1953 ADSeriously, I think it is a grave fault in life that so much time is wasted in social matters, because it not only takes up time when you might be doing individual private things, but it prevents you storing up the psychic energy that can then be released to create art or whatever it is. It's terrible the way we scotch silence & solitude at every turn, quite suicidal. I can't see how to avoid it, without being very rich or very unpopular, & it does worry me, for time is slipping by , and nothing is done. It isn't as if anything was gained by this social frivolity, It isn't: it's just a waste.Philip Larkin / quote ↗
08c. 1953 ADWhen getting my nose in a bookCured most things short of school,It was worth ruining my eyesTo know I could still keep cool,And deal out the old right hookTo dirty dogs twice my size.Later, with inch-thick specs,Evil was just my lark:Me and my coat and fangsHad ripping times in the dark.The women I clubbed with sex!I broke them up like meringues.Don't read much now: the dudeWho lets the girl down beforeThe hero arrives, the chapWho's yellow and keeps the storeSeem far too familiar. Get stewed:Books are a load of crap.(A Study Of Reading Habits)Philip Larkin / quote ↗
09c. 1953 ADHow little our careers express what lies in us, and yet how much time they take up. It's sad, really.Philip Larkin / quote ↗
10c. 1953 ADWork is a kind of vacuum, an emptiness, where I just switch off everything except the scant intelligence necessary to keep me going. God, the people are awful - great carved monstrosities from the sponge-stone of secondratedness. Hideous.Philip Larkin / quote ↗
11c. 1953 ADYou know, I know I should be just as panicky as you about the filthy work - one wants to do nothing in the evenings, certainly not spread rotten books around & dredge for a 'line'. It must be like still being a student, with an essay to do after a week's drinking, only you haven't had the drinking. Quite clearly, to me, you aren't a voluntary worker, from the will: you do it by intuitive flashes, more like an act of creation, & when the flashes don't come, as of course they don't, especially when the excess energy of undergraduate days is gone, then it is a hideous unnatural effort.Philip Larkin / quote ↗
12c. 1953 ADMaiden Name 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 confused By law with someone else, you cannot be Semantically the same as that young beauty: It was of her that these two words were used. Now it's a phrase applicable to no one, Lying just where you left it, scattered through Old lists, old programmes, a school prize or two Packets of letters tied with tartan ribbon - Then is it scentless, weightless, strengthless, wholly Untruthful? Try whispering it slowly. No, it means you. Or, since you're past and gone, It means what we feel now about you then: How beautiful you were, and near, and young, So vivid, you might still be there among Those first few days, unfingermarked again. So your old name shelters our faithfulness, Instead of losing shape and meaning less With your depreciating luggage laden.Philip Larkin / quote ↗
13c. 1953 ADI think that at the bottom of all art lies the impulse to preserve.Philip Larkin / quote ↗
14c. 1953 ADSex means nothing--just the moment of ecstasy, that flares and dies in minutes.Philip Larkin / quote ↗
15c. 1953 ADMuch better stay in company!To love you must have someone else,Giving requires a legatee,Good neighbours need whole parishfulsOf folk to do it on - in short,Our virtues are all social; if,Deprived of solitude, you chafe,It's clear you're not the virtuous sort.Philip Larkin / quote ↗
16c. 1953 ADI have a sense of melancholy isolation, life rapidly vanishing, all the usual things. It's very strange how often strong feelings don't seem to carry any message of action.Philip Larkin / quote ↗
17c. 1953 ADCaught in the center of a soundless fieldWhile hot inexplicable hours go byWhat trap is this? Where were its teeth concealed?You seem to ask.I make a sharp reply,Then clean my stick. I'm glad I can't explainJust in what jaws you were to suppurate:You may have thought things would come right againIf you could only keep quite still and wait.Philip Larkin / quote ↗
18c. 1953 ADWe should be carefulOf each other, we should be kindWhile there is still timePhilip Larkin / quote ↗
19c. 1953 ADThe mower stalled, twice; kneeling, I foundA hedgehog jammed up against the blades,Killed. It had been in the long grass.I had seen it before, and even fed it, once.Now I had mauled its unobtrusive worldUnmendably. Burial was no help:Next morning I got up and it did not.The first day after a death, the new absenceIs always the same; we should be carefulOf each other, we should be kindWhile there is still time.Philip Larkin / quote ↗
20c. 1953 ADIf grief could burn outLike a sunken coal,The heart would rest quiet, The unrent soulBe still as a veil; But I have watched all nightThe fire grow silent, The grey ash soft:And I stir the stubborn flintThe flames have left, And grief stirs, and the deftHeart lies impotent.Philip Larkin / quote ↗
22c. 1953 ADStrange to know nothing, never to be sureOf what is true or right or real,But forced to qualify or so I feel,Or Well, it does seem so:Someone must know.Strange to be ignorant of the way things work:Their skill at finding what they need,Their sense of shape, and punctual spread of seed,And willingness to change;Yes, it is strange,Even to wear such knowledge--for our fleshSurrounds us with its own decisions--and yet spend all our life on imprecisions,That when we start to dieHave no idea why.Philip Larkin / quote ↗
23c. 1953 ADlife is first boredom, then fear.whether or not we use it, it goes,and leaves what something hidden from us chose,and age, and then the only end of age.Philip Larkin / quote ↗
24c. 1953 ADWhen I was a child, I thought,Casually, that solitudeNever needed to be sought.Something everybody had,Like nakedness, it lay at hand,Not specially right or specially wrong,A plentiful and obvious thingNot at all hard to understand.Then, after twenty, it becameAt once more difficult to getAnd more desired -- though all the sameMore undesirable; for whatYou are alone has, to achieveThe rank of fact, to be expressedIn terms of others, or it's justA compensating make-believe.Much better stay in company!To love you must have someone else,Giving requires a legatee,Good neighbours need whole parishfulsOf folk to do it on -- in short,Our virtues are all social; if,Deprived of solitude, you chafe,It's clear you're not the virtuous sort.Viciously, then, I lock my door.The gas-fire breathes. The wind outsideUshers in evening rain. Once moreUncontradicting solitudeSupports me on its giant palm;And like a sea-anemoneOr simple snail, there cautiouslyUnfolds, emerges, whatPhilip Larkin / quote ↗
