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I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.
Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.
In time the curtain-edges will grow light.
Till then I see what's really always there:
Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,
Making all thought impossible but how
And where and when I shall myself die.
Arid interrogation: yet the dread
Of dying, and being dead,
Flashes afresh to hold and horrify.
The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse
- The good not done, the love not given, time
Torn off unused - nor wretchedly because
An only life can take so long to climb
Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never;
But at the total emptiness for ever,
The sure extinction that we travel to
And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,
Not to be anywhere,
And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.
This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
That vast, moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die,
And specious stuff that says No rational being
Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing
That this is what we fear - no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anasthetic from which none come round.
And so it stays just on the edge of vision,
A small, unfocused blur, a standing chill
That slows each impulse down to indecision.
Most things may never happen: this one will,
And realisation of it rages out
In furnace-fear when we are caught without
People or drink. Courage is no good:
It means not scaring others. Being brave
Lets no one off the grave.
Death is no different whined at than withstood.
Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape.
It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know,
Have always known, know that we can't escape,
Yet can't accept. One side will have to go.
Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring
In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring
Intricate rented world begins to rouse.
The sky is white as clay, with no sun.
Work has to be done.
Postmen like doctors go from house to house.
Philip Larkin
Read poems about / on: fear, travel, house, work, courage, death, light, people, lost, dark, sky, sun
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Click here to write your comments about this poem (Aubade by Philip Larkin)
Mark Mcconville (9/15/2008 1:58:00 PM)
This poem has always brought me to mind of Ernest Becker's The Denial of Death (which won a Pulitzer for non-fiction back in the 70's) , which made a powerful case for death angst as the central motivator and organizer of human personality and what are called 'character defenses.' Character defenses are systematic and parametric distortions of experience, that allow us to maintain our integrity and self esteem as individuals. Larkin's poem stares straight into the face of precisely what Becker said the human psyche cannot, ordinarily, tolerate. The poet is so unflinching, so undefended, I think he's really quite heroic. |
Lucy Simpson (12/31/2007 11:06:00 AM)
This is not my favorite Larkin poem. I cannot comprehend this obsession with death. I like the beginning and the ending of the poem very much. I like the matter-of-fact nature of it. Waking up in terror of death is something I cannot fully comprehend. I like morbid humor. Death is something to be poked at in my estimation, which is something Larkin does well in many of his poems, but not this one. It seems obsessive and whiny.
Lucy |
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Philip Larkin
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