All Poems
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Vers De Société
© Philip Larkin
My wife and I have asked a crowd of craps
To come and waste their time and ours: perhaps
You'd care to join us? In a pig's arse, friend.
Day comes to an end.
The gas fire breathes, the trees are darkly swayed.
And so Dear Warlock-Williams: I'm afraid--
Not Goo Hwome To-Night
© William Barnes
No, no, why you've noo wife at hwome
Abidèn up till you do come,
Wants
© Philip Larkin
Beyond all this, the wish to be alone:
However the sky grows dark with invitation-cards
However we follow the printed directions of sex
However the family is photographed under the flag-staff -
Beyond all this, the wish to be alone.
Ulalume
© Edgar Allan Poe
The skies they were ashen and sober;
The leaves they were crispéd and sere-
First Sight
© Philip Larkin
Lambs that learn to walk in snow
When their bleating clouds the air
Meet a vast unwelcome, know
Nothing but a sunless glare.
Goldilocks And Goldilocks
© William Morris
It was Goldilocks woke up in the morn
At the first of the shearing of the corn.
Story
© Philip Larkin
Settled. And in this mirage lived his dreams,
The friendly bully, saint, or lovely chum
According to his moods. Yet he at times
Would think about his village, and would wonder
If the children and the rocks were still the same.
The Wounded
© Sydney Thompson Dobell
'Thou canst not wish to live,' the surgeon said.
He clutched him, as a soul thrust forth from bliss
Deceptions
© Philip Larkin
"Of course I was drugged, and so heavily I did not regain
consciousness until the next morning. I was horrified to
discover that I had been ruined, and for some days I was inconsolable,
and cried like a child to be killed or sent back to my aunt."
The Soldiers Death
© Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon
The day was oer, and in their tent the weaned victors met,
In wine and social gaiety the carnage to forget.
The merry laugh and sparkling jest, the pleasant tale were there
Each heart was free and gladsome then, each brow devoid of care.
On First Looking Into Bee Palmer's Shoulders
© Franklin Pierce Adams
Then felt I like some patient with a pain
When a new surgeon swims into his ken,
Or like stout Brodie, when, with reeling brain,
He jumped into the river. There and then
I swayed and took the morning train
To Norwalk, Naugatuck, and Darien.
Grief
© Philip Larkin
If grief could burn out
Like a sunken coal
The heart would rest quiet
The unrent soul
Be as still as a veil
But I have watched all night
The Importance Of Elsewhere
© Philip Larkin
Lonely in Ireland, since it was not home,
Strangeness made sense. The salt rebuff of speech,
Insisting so on difference, made me welcome:
Once that was recognised, we were in touch
To A Friend In Bereavement
© Sydney Thompson Dobell
No comfort, nay, no comfort. Yet would I
In Sorrow's cause with Sorrow intercede.
May Morning
© Robert Laurence Binyon
Over all the watered vale
Shadows of the clouds trail:
Then the sun laughs out, and sheen
Runs like joy across the green.
Far Out
© Philip Larkin
Beyond the dark cartoons
Are darker spaces where
Small cloudy nests of stars
Seem to float on air.
Earth's Easter
© Robert Haven Schauffler
Earth has gone up from its Gethsemane,
And now on Golgotha is crucified;
New Eyes Each Year
© Philip Larkin
New eyes each year
Find old books here,
And new books,too,
Old eyes renew;
Westward Ho!
© Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
We should not sit us down and sigh,
My girl, whose brow a fane appears,
Whose steadfast eyes look royally
Backwards and forwards o'er the years--
