" (A Study in Light and Dark)"
The glow, back over the common, comes from the railway:
that’s the Church candle, been burning now quite a number of years:
there, that’s the light the lover flicks
as he follows the joys of consummation with the joys of a cigarette:
that light was the flash as a man shot himself:
that’s a searchlight feeling for bombers:
there, the light appears as the squinting wife regards the fuddled husband:
these are twin headlights of a capitalist’s car:
this, the gaslight of a trodden worker who would tread:
that’s the light of a cinema:
that’s the light of Mars that’s the moon
that’s a match.
Alone now, in my dark room
The pebbles cease to drop into the rocking pool
And gradually the surface quietens
Reflecting image of darkest peace and silence.
No questions catch the clothes
But only as it were a spreading
Draws all threads to their finished pattern
And you are pieced together bit by bit
Set against the evening
Lovely and glowing, like a chain of gold.
Philip Larkin, Collected Poems, ed. Anthony Thwaite (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1989) "
― Philip Larkin , Collected Poems
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The glow, back over the common, comes from the railway:
that’s the Church candle, been burning now quite a number of years:
there, that’s the light the lover flicks
as he follows the joys of consummation with the joys of a cigarette:
that light was the flash as a man shot himself:
that’s a searchlight feeling for bombers:
there, the light appears as the squinting wife regards the fuddled husband:
these are twin headlights of a capitalist’s car:
this, the gaslight of a trodden worker who would tread:
that’s the light of a cinema:
that’s the light of Mars that’s the moon
that’s a match.
Alone now, in my dark room
The pebbles cease to drop into the rocking pool
And gradually the surface quietens
Reflecting image of darkest peace and silence.
No questions catch the clothes
But only as it were a spreading
Draws all threads to their finished pattern
And you are pieced together bit by bit
Set against the evening
Lovely and glowing, like a chain of gold.
Philip Larkin,
Collected Poems, ed. Anthony Thwaite (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1989)" style="width:100%;margin:20px 0;"/>