Philip Larkin was born 100 years ago this week. It's said that he had a difficult childhood (who didn't). But, as Alan Bennett once remarked, poets should be grateful for tricky beginnings as it gave them something to write about.
This poem is about beginnings and, for someone known as being gloomy, is positively cheerful.
The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.
Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too,
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.
And we grow old? No, they die too,
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.
Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.
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To listen to a broader perspective on Larkin, try a repeat of Roger McGough's Poetry Please. It includes This be the Verse which embodies a policy for universal population control and is one that would relieve all the pressures on the health service. It's said that he wanted 100 girl guides to recite this at his funeral. Sadly, they didn't.
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