The Complete Poems of Philip Larkin

1 The Complete Poems of Philip Larkin . edited with an introduction and commentary by ARCHIE BURNETT. Contents Title Page 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.

2 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 Soci t . 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.

3 Femmes Damn es 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 ( un ami qui aime.).

4 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).

5 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.

6 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.

7 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.

8 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.

9 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].

10 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.