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[silverflurry.livejournal.com]

Sad Steps


Groping back to bed after a piss
I part thick curtains, and am startled by
The rapid clouds, the moon's cleanliness.

Four o'clock: wedge-shadowed gardens lie
Under a cavernous, a wind-picked sky.
There's something laughable about this,

The way the moon dashes through clouds that blow
Loosely as cannon-smoke to stand apart
(Stone-coloured light sharpening the roofs below)

High and preposterous and separate--
Lozenge of love! Medallion of art!
O wolves of memory! Immensements! No,

One shivers slightly, looking up there.
The hardness and the brightness and the plain
Far-reaching singleness of that wide stare

Is a reminder of the strength and pain
Of being young; that it can't come again,
But is for others undiminished somewhere.


Larkin, Philip. Collected Poems: Philip Larkin.
(Noonday Press - 1993).

Philip Larkin (1922-1985) was a highly-regarded English poet and novelist known for his anti-romantic sensibility and terse style. Educated at Oxford University, Larkin published his first two volumes of poems - The North Ship and XX Poems - at his own expense in 1945 and 1951, respectively. His third volume, The Less Deceived, was published by more conventional means in 1955 to critical acclaim. In addition to writing numerous novels and volumes of verse, Larkin was jazz critic for The Daily Telegraph and librarian at the University of Hull, Yorkshire. He also edited the Oxford Book of Twentieth-Century English Verse (1973).

Comments

i miss school.

[sylphbranching.livejournal.com]

My AP English teacher in high school was a huge Larkin fan. I didn't appreciate the poet that much at the time, but I really do now. I find the rhyme and rhythm in this poem as ironic as the language. In hs, we compared this poem to another of the same name, though I forget who wrote it – it was a romantic apostrophe to the moon, where the narrator imagines the moon shares his heartsickness – the first line announces:

With how sad steps, O Moon, thou climb'st the skies!

In college, I wrote a great essay comparing Larkin's poem to a poem by Joseph von Eichendorff (a late romantic, also author of "Aus dem Leben eines Taugenichts"). The poem and a quick translation is below. Sadly, it was the only college essay I ever lost, even though it ranked among my favorites. In both poems, two men stand at the window and reflect on another, perhaps a lover...but the desires of the poets, as well as their impressions of the night landscape, are very different.

Sehnsucht

Es schienen so golden die Sterne/The stars shone o so golden
Am Fenster wo ich einsam stand/At the window where I stood alone
Und hoerte aus weiter Ferne/ And heard from out the far distance
Ein Posthorn im stillen Land./ A post-horn across the still country

Das Herz mir im Leib entbrennte/ My heart burned in my body
Da hab' ich mir heimlich gedacht/ There I secretly thought to myself
Ach, wer da mitreisen koennte,/Oh, who could travel together there
In der praechtigen Sommernacht./In the lovely summer night

Zwei junge Gesellen gingen/Two young travelers came
Vorueber am Bergeshang/Over the hanging cliffs
Ich hoerte im Wandern sie singen/I heard them singing as they hiked
Die stille Gegend entlang/Across the quiet landscape

Von schwindelnden Felsenschlueften/From the disappearing (cataracts?)
Wo die Waelder rauschen so sacht,/Where the forests rustle gently
Von Quellen, die von den Klueften/From springs, that from the cliffs
Sich stuerzen in die Waldesnacht./Plunge into the forest night

Sie sangen von Marmorbildern,/They sang of marble images
Von Gaerten, die ueberm Gestein/Of gardens, that over the stones
In daemmernden Lauben verwildern/In changing greenery make wilder
Palaesten im Mondenschein /Palaces in the moonshine

Wo die Maedchen am Fenster lauschen,/Where the girls at the window grow silent
Wann der Lauten Klang erwacht/When the loud tone awakes
Und die Brunnen verschlafen rauschen/And the springs, oversleeping, rustle,
In der praechtigen Sommernacht./In the lovely summer night

Re: i miss school.

[silverflurry.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you appreciated the post!