The Complete Poems of Philip Larkin by Larkin, Philip -- Read -- Imperial Library of Trantor

Index

Cover Landing Page Title Page Contents Acknowledgements Abbreviations used Introduction THE POEMS

The North Ship

I II III IV Dawn V Conscript VI VII VIII Winter IX X XI Night-Music XII XIII XIV Nursery Tale XV The Dancer XVI XVII XVIII XIX Ugly Sister XX XXI XXII XXIII XXIV XXV XXVI XXVII XXVIII XXIX XXX XXXI The North Ship XXXII

The Less Deceived

Lines on a Young Lady’s Photograph Album Wedding-Wind Places, Loved Ones Coming Reasons for Attendance Dry-Point Next, Please Going Wants Maiden Name Born Yesterday Whatever Happened? No Road Wires Church Going Age Myxomatosis Toads Poetry of Departures Triple Time Spring Deceptions I Remember, I Remember Absences Latest Face If, My Darling Skin Arrivals, Departures At Grass

The Whitsun Weddings

Here Mr Bleaney Nothing To Be Said Love Songs in Age Naturally the Foundation will Bear Your Expenses Broadcast Faith Healing For Sidney Bechet Home is so Sad Toads Revisited Water The Whitsun Weddings Self’s the Man Take One Home for the Kiddies Days MCMXIV Talking in Bed The Large Cool Store A Study of Reading Habits As Bad as a Mile Ambulances The Importance of Elsewhere Sunny Prestatyn First Sight Dockery and Son Ignorance Reference Back Wild Oats Essential Beauty Send No Money Afternoons An Arundel Tomb

High Windows

To the Sea Sympathy in White Major The Trees Livings Forget What Did High Windows Friday Night in the Royal Station Hotel The Old Fools Going, Going The Card-Players The Building Posterity Dublinesque Homage to a Government This Be The Verse How Distant Sad Steps Solar Annus Mirabilis Vers de Société Show Saturday Money Cut Grass The Explosion

Other Poems Published in the Poet’s Lifetime

Winter Nocturne Fragment from May Summer Nocturne Street Lamps Spring Warning Last Will and Testament Ultimatum Story A Writer May Weather Observation Disintegration Mythological Introduction A Stone Church Damaged by a Bomb Plymouth Portrait Fiction and the Reading Public Pigeons Tops Success Story Modesties Breadfruit Love When the Russian tanks roll westward How Heads in the Women’s Ward Continuing to Live The Life with a Hole in it I hope games like tossing the caber Aubade 1952–1977 Femmes Damnées New eyes each year The Mower Bridge for the Living When Coote roared: ‘Mitchell! what about this jazz?’ Dear CHARLES, My Muse, asleep or dead, By day, a lifted study-storehouse; night Party Politics

Poems Not Published in the Poet’s Lifetime

Who’s that guy hanging on a rail? Coventria Thought Somewhere in France 1917 What the half-open door said to the empty room Butterflies A Meeting – Et Seq. (2) The Ships at Mylae Alvis Victrix Stanley en Musique Founder’s Day, 1939 Collected Fragments The sun was battling to close our eyes Chorus from a Masque Stanley et la Glace Erotic Play The Days of thy Youth (À un ami qui aime.) The grinding halt of plant, and clicking stiles Smash all the mirrors in your home Watch, my dear, the darkness now Has all History rolled to bring us here In a second I knew it was your voice speaking (A Study in Light and Dark) Within, a voice said: Cry What is the difference between December and January To A Friend’s Acquaintance To A Friend A Farewell Young Woman’s Blues Lie there, my tumbled thoughts Now the shadows that fall from the hills The pistol now again is raised Autumn has caught us in our summer wear Evensong This is one of those whiteghosted mornings We see the spring breaking across rough stone Why did I dream of you last night The cycles hiss on the road away from the factory So you have been, despite parental ban Through darkness of sowing Falling of these early flowers Praise to the higher organisms (from James Hogg) Turning from obscene verses to the stars Autumn sees the sun low in the sky Prologue Standing on love’s farther shores Epilogue Remark Long Jump Quests are numerous; for the far acid strand For the mind to betray For who will deny Poem Midsummer Night, 1940 Two Sonnets I: The Conscript II: The Conscientious Objector Further Afterdinner Remarks (extempore) Historical Fact: But as to the real truth, who knows? The earth It is late: the moon regards the city A birthday, yes, a day without rain Art is not clever O today is everywhere Creative Joy The spaniel on the tennis court Schoolmaster When we broke up, I walked alone From the window at sundown You’ve only one life and you’d better not lose it Envoi The question of poetry, of course Rupert Brooke Postscript On Imitating Auden The earliest machine was simple Mr. A. J. Wilton There’s a high percentage of bastards Christmas 1940 Ghosts Poem Prayer of a Plum A bird sings at the garden’s end. I should be glad to be in at the death Chant Hard Lines, or Mean Old W. H. Thomas Blues O won’t it be just posh Having grown up in shade of Church and State When the night puts twenty veils Nothing significant was really said Prince, fortune is accepted among these rooms The hills in their recumbent postures At once he realised that the thrilling night After-Dinner Remarks Unexpectedly the scene attained There are moments like music, minutes Could wish to lose hands There is no language of destruction for Out in the lane I pause: the night New Year Poem Evening, and I, young Stranger, do not linger The Poet’s Last Poem The world in its flowing is various; as tides Time and Space were only their disguises The house on the edge of the serious wood Out of this came danger The Dead City: A Vision At school, the acquaintance The wind at creep of dawn Those who are born to rot, decay – O what ails thee, bloody sod After the casual growing-up There behind the intricate carving Sailors brought back strange stories of those lands Dances in Doggerel Lines after Blake I don’t like March The doublehanded kiss and the brainwet hatred A day has fallen past If days were matches I would strike the lot I walk at random through the evening park At the flicker of a letter Where should we lie, green heart I am the latest son This triumph ended in the curtained head The sun swings near the earth Leave As the pool hits the diver, or the white cloud Flesh to flesh was loving from the start July Miniatures Birds are preaching to the walking pylons The Returning Now The poet has a straight face To James Sutton Poem Llandovery Fuel Form Blues Poem The canal stands through the fields; another Planes Passing As a war in years of peace A Member of the 1922 Class Looks to the Future A Member of the 1922 Class Reads the 1942 Newspapers A Democrat to Others After a particularly good game of rugger Poem (from the back) Songs of Innocence and Inexperience Soul Birth The Death of Life A broken down chair sprawls in the corner To Ursula Spoonerism If approached by Sir Cyril Norwood Letters Blues The – er – university of Stockholm – er – The False Friend Bliss Ballade des Dames du Temps Jadis Holidays The School in August Fourth Former Loquitur I would give all I possess ‘Sent you a letter, but it had to go by boat, The wind that blows from Morpeth Address to Life, by a Young Man Seeking a Career What ant crawls behind the picture Someone stole a march on the composer Did you hear his prayer, God? Leap Year Some large man had a pendulous eyeball End On Poetry Inscription on a Clockface Wall up the day in words; There is snow in the sky If I saw the sky in flames When this face was younger, Honour William Yeats for this success Poem If I wrote like D. H. Lawrence, I wouldn’t need to drink no beer Poem Girl Saying Goodbye Mary Cox in tennis socks Small paths lead away Sheaves under the moon in ghostly fruitfulness [CREWE] Why should I be out walking We are the night-shite shifters shifting the shite by night and shouting Snow has brought the winter to my door To S. L. Because the images would not fit Days like a handful of grey pearls Numberless blades of grass ‘Draw close around you I have despatched so many words Where was this silence learned Ride with me down into the spring Safely evening behind the window Song with a Spoken Refrain Happiness is a flame Lie with me, though the night return outside When trees are quiet, there will be no more weeping The dead are lost, unravelled; but if a voice Lift through the breaking day Past days of gales The cry I would hear Who whistled for the wind, that it should break Sky tumbles, the sea Sting in the shell A stick’s-point, drawn There is no clearer speaking THE MAYOR OF BRISTOL WAS DRINKING GIN Beggars When the tide draws out Blues Shouter That girl is lame: look at my rough Voices round a light Laforgue And did you once see Russell plain? From this day forward, may you find Coming at last to night’s most thankful springs Deep Analysis Come then to prayers And the wave sings because it is moving Two Guitar Pieces Träumerei To a Very Slow Air At the chiming of light upon sleep Many famous feet have trod Thaw An April Sunday brings the snow And yet – but after death there’s no ‘and yet’ I am washed upon a rock Neurotics On Being Twenty-six Sinking like sediment through the day In our family To Failure Epigram on an Academic Marriage My Home Compline How to Sleep The Literary World Strangers Under a splendid chestnut tree Westminster’s crown has gained a special jewel – Teevan touched pitch: the pitch was very wild. The Spirit Wooed To My Wife The Dedicated Oils Who called love conquering Arrival Since the majority of me March Past Marriages To put one brick upon another Maturity You think yourself no end of fun Somewhere on the Isle of Mull When she came on, you couldn’t keep your seat At thirty-one, when some are rich Mother, Summer, I Autumn Best Society Unfinished Poem Hospital Visits Autobiography at an Air-Station Negative Indicative Love Marriage Midwinter Waking Those who give all for love, or art, or duty Gathering Wood Long roots moor summer to our side of earth What have I done to be thirty-two ‘Is your field sunny Boars Hill Christmas A Sense of Shape Long Sight in Age Counting Back to this dreary dump The local snivels through the fields Getting Somewhere To Hart Crane A Midland Syllogism Outcome of a Conversation The Wild Ones Travellers Behind Time You’ll do anything for money To + + + + + + + + + + + and Others Get Kingsley Amis to sleep with your wife Oh who is this feeling my prick? Her birthday always has My name it is Benjamin Bunny ‘Snow has covered up our track Far Out Not to worry, Len’s having a dip; Let there be an empty space where Rabbit used to stand, Let the classroom dais be empty where the rabbit used to thump They are all gone into the world of light Homeward, rabbit, homeward go ‘Living for others,’ (others say) ‘is best.’ A Lecturer in drip-dry shirt arrayed Letter to a Friend about Girls None of the books have time Goodnight World Great baying groans burst from my lips A sit-on-the-fence old gull BJ’s the man in charge, Hotter shorter days arrive, like happiness And now the leaves suddenly lose strength January Sir George Grouse to Sir Wm Gull Sir George Grouse to Sir Wm Gull: Chaps who live in California Praise God from whom all blessings flow, Sitting across the aisle Long Last Castle, Park, Dean and Hook I would I were where Russell plays Laboratory Monkeys O wha will o’er the downs with me Welcome 1966! Lowell, Lowell, Lowell, Lowell, Scratch on the scratch pad Then the students cursing and grumbling Fill up the glasses, since we’re here for life, ‘Here’s a health to the Squire, The Dance High o’er the fence leaps Soldier Jim, In Xanadu did Kubla Khan At the sign of The Old Farting Arse After drinking Glenfiddich Morning, noon & bloody night The world’s great age begins anew, See the Pope of Ulster stand, I dreamed I saw a commie rally, Holiday The polyp comes & goes, How to Win the Next Election The flag you fly for us is furled, The Manciple’s Tale Sod the lower classes, Poem about Oxford Light, Clouds, Dwelling-places I have started to say When the lead says goonight to the copper, Sherry does more than Bovril can, This was Mr Bleaney’s bungalow, It’s plain that Marleen and Patricia would Have a little more When first we faced, and touching showed Dear Jake Be my Valentine this Monday Morning at last: there in the snow We met at the end of the party Once more upon the village green I want to see them starving Davie, Davie Well, I must arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, After Healey’s trading figures, California, here I come The little lives of earth and form Administration Haymakers and reapers by Stubbs The sky split apart in malice Thought you might welcome a dekko Walt Whitman If I could talk, I’d be a worthless prof The daily things we do New brooms sweep clean Love Again After eating in honour of Chichele Apples on a Christmas tree The one thing I’d say about A. Thwaite The View All work & no wassail Good for You, Gavin Beware the travelogue, my son, ‘When one door shuts, another opens.’ Cock! The chances are certainly slim 1982 My feet are clay, my brains are sodden This collection of various scraps Outside, a dog barks Last night we put the clocks on Bun’s Outing After reading the works of MacCaig

Undated or Approximately Dated Poems

There was an old fellow of Kaber The Way We Live Now What is booze for When the night is hoar On the shortest day Roses, roses all the way? No power cuts here – Those long thin steeds Though there’s less at wch to purr, Snow on Valentine’s Day!

COMMENTARY

The North Ship

The Less Deceived

The Whitsun Weddings

High Windows

Other Poems Published in the Poet’s Lifetime

Winter Nocturne Fragment from May Summer Nocturne Street Lamps Spring Warning Last Will and Testament Ultimatum Story A Writer May Weather Observation Disintegration Mythological Introduction A Stone Church Damaged by a Bomb Plymouth Portrait Fiction and the Reading Public Pigeons Tops Success Story Modesties Breadfruit Love ‘When the Russian tanks roll westward’ How Heads in the Women’s Ward Continuing to Live The Life with a Hole in it ‘I hope games like tossing the caber’ Aubade 1952–1977 Femmes Damnées ‘New eyes each year’ The Mower Bridge for the Living ‘When Coote roared: “Mitchell, what about this jazz?”’ ‘Dear CHARLES, My Muse, asleep or dead’ ‘By day, a lifted study-storehouse’ Party Politics

Poems Not Published in the Poet’s Lifetime

‘Who’s that guy hanging on a rail?’ Coventria Thought Somewhere in France 1917 What the half-open door said to the empty room when a chance draft ruffled the pages of an old scorebook which happened to be lying on the top of a cupboard when the last blazer had gone home Butterflies A Meeting – Et Seq. (2) The Ships at Mylae Alvis Victrix Stanley en Musique Founder’s Day, 1939 Collected Fragments ‘The sun was battling to close our eyes’ Chorus from a Masque Stanley et La Glace Erotic Play The Days of thy Youth (À un ami qui aime.) ‘The grinding halt of plant, and clicking stiles’ ‘Smash all the mirrors in your home’ ‘Watch, my dear, the darkness now’ ‘Has all History rolled to bring us here?’ ‘In a second I knew it was your voice speaking’ (A Study in Light and Dark) ‘Within, a voice said: Cry!’ ‘What is the difference between December and January?’ To a Friend’s Acquaintance To a Friend A Farewell Young Woman’s Blues ‘Lie there, my tumbled thoughts’ ‘Now the shadows that fall from the hills’ ‘The pistol now again is raised’ ‘Autumn has caught us in our summer wear’ Evensong ‘This is one of those whiteghosted mornings’ ‘We see the spring breaking across rough stone’ ‘Why did I dream of you last night?’ ‘The cycles hiss on the road away from the factory’ ‘So you have been, despite paternal ban’ ‘Through darkness of sowing’ ‘Falling of these early flowers’ ‘Praise to the higher organisms!’ ‘(from James Hogg) | Lock the door, Lariston, lock it, I say to you’ ‘Turning from obscene verses to the stars’ ‘Autumn sees the sun low in the sky’ Prologue ‘Standing on love’s farther shores’ Epilogue Remark Long Jump ‘Quests are numerous; for the far acid strand’ ‘For the mind to betray’ ‘For who will deny’ Poem (‘Still beauty’) Midsummer Night, 1940 Two Sonnets Further Afterdinner Remarks Historical Fact: ‘But as to the real truth, who knows? The earth’ ‘It is late: the moon regards the city’ ‘A birthday, yes, a day without rain’ ‘Art is not clever’ ‘O today is everywhere’ Creative Joy Schoolmaster ‘When we broke up, I walked alone’ ‘From the window at sundown’ ‘You’ve only one life and you’d better not lose it’ ‘The question of poetry, of course’ Rupert Brooke Postscript | On Imitating Auden ‘The earliest machine was simple’ ‘Mr. A. J. Wilton’ ‘There’s a high percentage of bastards’ Christmas 1940 Ghosts Poem (‘Walking on the summer grass beneath the trees’) Prayer of a Plum ‘A bird sings at the garden’s end’ ‘I should be glad to be in at the death’ Chant Hard Lines, or Mean Old W. H. Thomas Blues ‘O won’t it be just posh’ ‘Having grown up in shade of Church and State’ ‘When the night puts twenty veils’ ‘Nothing significant was really said’ ‘Prince, fortune is accepted among these rooms’ ‘The hills in their recumbent postures’ ‘At once he realised that the thrilling night’ After-Dinner Remarks ‘Unexpectedly the scene attained’ ‘There are moments like music, minutes’ ‘Could wish to lose hands’ ‘There is no language of destruction for’ ‘Out in the lane I pause: the night’ New Year Poem ‘Evening, and I, young’ ‘Stranger, do not linger’ The Poet’s Last Poem ‘The world in its flowing is various; as tides’ ‘Time and Space were only their disguises’ ‘The house on the edge of the serious wood’ ‘Out of this came danger’ The Dead City: A Vision ‘At school, the acquaintance’ ‘The wind at creep of dawn’ ‘Those who are born to rot, decay –’ ‘O what ails thee, bloody sod’ ‘After the casual growing-up’ ‘There behind the intricate carving’ ‘Sailors brought back strange stories of those lands’ Dances in Doggerel Lines after Blake ‘I don’t like March!’ ‘The doublehanded kiss and the brainwet hatred’ ‘A day has fallen past’ ‘If days were matches I would strike the lot’ ‘I walk at random through the evening park’ ‘At the flicker of a letter’ ‘Where should we lie, green heart’ ‘I am the latest son’ ‘This triumph ended in the curtained head’ ‘The sun swings near the earth’ Leave ‘As the pool hits the diver, or the white cloud’ ‘Flesh to flesh was loving from the start’ July Miniatures ‘Blind through the shouting sun’ The Returning Now ‘The poet has a straight face’ To James Sutton | Poem ‘Llandovery’ Fuel Form Blues Poem (‘I met an idiot at a bend in the lane’) ‘The canal stands through the fields; another’ Planes Passing ‘As a war in years of peace’ A Member of the 1922 Class Looks to the Future A Member of the 1922 Class Reads the 1942 Newspapers A Democrat to Others ‘After a particularly good game of rugger’ Poem (‘The camera of the eye’) ‘(from the back) | We’re Middleton Murry & Somerset Maugham’ Songs of Innocence and Inexperience If approached by Sir Cyril Norwood Letters Blues ‘The – er – university of Stockholm – er –’ The False Friend Bliss Ballade des Dames du Temps Jadis Holidays The School in August Fourth Former Loquitur ‘I would give all I possess’ ‘Sent you a letter, but it had to go by boat’ ‘The wind that blows from Morpeth’ Address to Life, by a Young Man Seeking a Career ‘What ant crawls behind the picture?’ ‘Someone stole a march on the composer’ ‘Did you hear his prayer, God?’ Leap Year ‘Some large man had a pendulous eyeball’ End On Poetry Inscription on a Clockface ‘Wall up the day in words’ ‘There is snow in the sky’ ‘If I saw the sky in flames’ ‘When this face was younger’ ‘Honour William Yeats for this success’ Poem (‘Summer extravagances shrink’) ‘If I wrote like D. H. Lawrence, I wouldn’t need to drink no beer’ Poem (‘Last night, by a restless bed’) Girl Saying Goodbye ‘Mary Cox in tennis shorts’ ‘Small paths lead away’ ‘Sheaves under the moon in ghostly fruitfulness’ [Crewe] ‘Why should I be out walking’ ‘We are the night-shite shifters shifting the shite by night and shouting’ ‘Snow has brought the winter to my door’ To S. L. ‘Because the images would not fit’ ‘Days like a handful of grey pearls’ ‘Numberless blades of grass’ ‘Draw close around you’ ‘I have despatched so many words’ ‘Where was this silence learned’ ‘Ride with me down into the spring’ ‘Safely evening behind the window’ Song with a Spoken Refrain ‘Happiness is a flame’ ‘Lie with me, though the night return outside’ ‘When trees are quiet, there will be no more weeping’ ‘The dead are lost, unravelled; but if a voice’ ‘Lift through the breaking day’ ‘Past days of gales’ ‘The cry I would hear’ ‘Who whistled for the wind, that it should break’ ‘Sky tumbles, the sea’ ‘Sting in the shell’ ‘A stick’s-point, drawn’ ‘There is no clearer speaking’ ‘THE MAYOR OF BRISTOL WAS DRINKING GIN’ Beggars ‘When the tide draws out’ Blues Shouter ‘That girl is lame: look at my rough’ ‘Voices round a light’ Laforgue ‘And did you once see Russell plain?’ ‘From this day forward, may you find’ ‘Coming at last to night’s most thankful springs’ Deep Analysis ‘Come then to prayers’ ‘And the wave sings because it is moving’ Two Guitar Pieces Träumerei To A Very Slow Air ‘At the chiming of light upon sleep’ ‘Many famous feet have trod’ Thaw ‘An April Sunday brings the snow’ ‘And yet – but after death there’s no “and yet”’ ‘I am washed upon a rock’ Neurotics On Being Twenty-six ‘Sinking like sediment through the day’ ‘In our family’ To Failure Epigram on an Academic Marriage My Home Compline How to Sleep The Literary World Strangers ‘Under a splendid chestnut tree’ ‘Westminster’s crown has gained a special jewel’ ‘Teevan touched pitch: the pitch was very wild’ The Spirit Wooed To My Wife The Dedicated Oils ‘Who called love conquering’ Arrival ‘Since the majority of me’ March Past Marriages ‘To put one brick upon another’ Maturity ‘You think yourself no end of fun’ ‘Somewhere on the Isle of Mull’ ‘When she came on, you couldn’t keep your seat’ ‘At thirty-one, when some are rich’ Mother, Summer, I Autumn Best Society Unfinished Poem Hospital Visits Autobiography at an Air-Station Negative Indicative Love (‘Not love you? Dear, I’d pay ten quid for you’) Marriage Midwinter Waking ‘Those who give all for love, or art, or duty’ Gathering Wood ‘Long roots moor summer to our side of earth’ ‘What have I done to be thirty-two?’ ‘Is your field sunny?’ Boars Hill Christmas A Sense of Shape Long Sight in Age Counting ‘Back to this dreary dump’ ‘The local snivels through the fields’ Getting Somewhere To Hart Crane A Midland Syllogism Outcome of a Conversation The Wild Ones Travellers Behind Time ‘You’ll do anything for money’ To + + + + + + + + + + + and others ‘Get Kingsley Amis to sleep with your wife’ ‘Oh who is this feeling my prick?’ ‘Her birthday always has’ ‘My name it is Benjamin Bunny’ ‘Snow has covered up our track’ Far Out ‘Not to worry, Len’s having a dip’ ‘Let there be an empty space where Rabbit used to stand’ ‘Let the classroom dais be empty where the rabbit used to thump’ ‘They are all gone into the world of light’ Homeward, rabbit, homeward go ‘“Living for others,” (others say) “is best”’ ‘A Lecturer in drip-dry shirt arrayed’ Letter to a Friend about Girls ‘None of the books have time’ Goodnight World ‘Great baying groans burst from my lips’ ‘A sit-on-the-fence old gull’ ‘BJ’s the man in charge’ ‘Hotter shorter days arrive, like happiness’ ‘And now the leaves suddenly lose strength’ January ‘Sir George Grouse to Sir Wm Gull’ ‘Sir George Grouse to Sir Wm Gull’ [second version] ‘Chaps who live in California’ ‘Praise God from whom all blessings flow’ ‘Sitting across the aisle’ Long Last ‘Castle, Park, Dean and Hook’ ‘I would I were where Russell plays’ Laboratory Monkeys ‘O wha will o’er the downs with me’ ‘Welcome 1966!’ ‘Lowell, Lowell, Lowell, Lowell’ ‘Scratch on the scratch pad’ ‘Then the students cursing and grumbling’ ‘Fill up the glasses, since we’re here for life’ ‘Here’s a health to the Squire’ The Dance ‘High o’er the fence leaps Soldier Jim’ ‘In Xanadu did Kubla Khan’ ‘At the sign of The Old Farting Arse’ ‘After drinking Glenfiddich’ ‘Morning, noon, & bloody night’ ‘The world’s great age begins anew’ ‘See the Pope of Ulster stand’ ‘I dreamed I saw a commie rally’ Holiday ‘The polyp comes & goes’ How to Win the Next Election ‘The flag you fly for us is furled’ The Manciple’s Tale ‘Sod the lower classes’ Poem about Oxford Light, Clouds, Dwelling-places ‘I have started to say’ ‘When the lead says goonight to the copper’ ‘Sherry does more than Bovril can’ ‘This was Mr Bleaney’s bungalow’ ‘It’s plain that Marleen and Patricia would’ ‘Have a little more’ ‘When first we faced, and touching showed’ Dear Jake ‘Be my Valentine this Monday’ ‘Morning at last: there in the snow’ ‘We met at the end of the party’ ‘Once more upon the village green’ ‘I want to see them starving’ ‘Davie, Davie’ ‘Well, I must arise and go now, and go to Innisfree’ ‘After Healey’s trading figures’ ‘California, here I come’ ‘The little lives of earth and form’ Administration ‘Haymakers and reapers by Stubbs’ ‘The sky split apart in malice’ ‘Thought you might welcome a dekko’ ‘Walt Whitman’ ‘If I could talk, I’d be a worthless prof’ ‘The daily things we do’ ‘New brooms sweep clean’ Love Again ‘After eating in honour of Chichele’ ‘Apples on a Christmas tree!’ ‘The one thing I’d say about A. Thwaite’ The View ‘All work & no wassail’ ‘Good for you, Gavin’ ‘Beware the travelogue, my son’ ‘“When one door shuts, another opens.” Cock!’ ‘The chances are certainly slim’ 1982 ‘My feet are clay, my brains are sodden’ ‘This collection of various scraps’ ‘Outside, a dog barks’ ‘Last night we put the clocks on’ Bun’s Outing ‘After reading the works of MacCaig’

Undated or Approximately Dated Poems

‘There was an old fellow of Kaber’ The Way We Live Now ‘Roses, roses all the way?’ ‘No power cuts here –’ ‘Though there’s less at wch to purr’ ‘Snow on Valentine’s Day’

APPENDICES

I Larkin’s Early Collections of his Poems II Dates of Composition

Index of Titles and First Lines About the Author About the Editor By the Same Author Copyright

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