Quarterly, is it, money reproaches me: 
    'Why do you let me lie here wastefully? 
I am all you never had of goods and sex,
    You could get them still by writing a few cheques.'
    
So I look at others, what they do with theirs:
    They certainly don't keep it upstairs.
By now they've a second house and car and wife:
    Clearly money has something to do with life 
    
- In fact, they've a lot in common, if you enquire:
    You can't put off being young until you retire,
And however you bank your screw, the money you save
    Won't in the end buy you more than a shave.
    
I listen to money singing. It's like looking down
    From long French windows at a provincial town,
The slums, the canal, the churches ornate and mad
    In the evening sun. It is intensely sad.
Money
written byPhilip Larkin
© Philip Larkin


 



