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"And girls you have to tell to pull their socks up
Are those whose pants you'd most like to pull down."
Philip Larkin (1922-1986), British poet. "Administration." |
"And why was all
Your body sharpened against me, vigilant,
Watchful, when all I meant
Was to make it bright, that it might stand
Burnished before my tent?"
Philip Larkin (1922-1986), British poet. "Deep Analysis." |
"calm and dry,
It holds you like a heaven, and you lie
Unvariably lovely there,
Smaller and clearer as the years go by."
Philip Larkin (1922-1985), British poet. Lines on a Young Lady's Photograph Album (l. 42-45). . .
Collected Poems of Philip Larkin. Anthony Thwaite, ed. (1988) Farrar, Straus and Giroux. |
"Books; china; a life
Reprehensibly perfect."
Philip Larkin (1922-1986), British poet. "Poetry of Departures." |
""A woman has ten claws,"
Sang the drunken boatswain...."
Philip Larkin (1922-1986), British poet. "The North Ship." |
"All the familiar horrors we
Associate with others
Are coming fast along our way:
The wind is warning in our tree
And morning papers still betray
The shrieking of the mothers."
Philip Larkin (1922-1986), British poet. "After-Dinner Remarks." |
"I could not follow your wishes, but I know
If they assuaged you
It would not be crying in this dark, your sorrow,
It would not be crying, so
That my own heart drifts and cries, having no death
Because of the darkness,
Having only your grief under my mouth
Because of the darkness."
Philip Larkin (1922-1986), British poet. "Deep Analysis." |
"Those flowers, that gate,
These misty parks and motors, lacerate
Simply by being over; you
Contract my heart by looking out of date."
Philip Larkin (1922-1985), British poet. Lines on a Young Lady's Photograph Album (l. 27-30). . .
Collected Poems of Philip Larkin. Anthony Thwaite, ed. (1988) Farrar, Straus and Giroux. |
"He walked out on the whole crowd
Leaves me flushed and stirred,
Like Then she undid her dress
Or Take that you bastard;
Surely I can, if he did?"
Philip Larkin (1922-1986), British poet. "Poetry of Departures." |
"That is where they live:
Not here and now, but where all happened once.
This is why they give
An air of baffled absence, trying to be there
Yet being here."
Philip Larkin (1922-1986), British poet. "The Old Fools." |
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Philip Larkin
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