Philip Larkin (1922-1985) English poet, novelist and librarian
His poetry often explored themes of mortality, loss, and the passage of time. Although a celebrated author, he kept his work as a librairan all his life. From 1955 until his death, he held the position as librarian at the University of Hull. He preferred a quiet, provincial life which also shaped his poetry. He often deals with themes of "time, death, and the unfulfilled promises of life". Although a controversial person due to some of his private views, he is highly regarded and considered one of the greatest British poets of the 20th century.
The Whitsun Weddings collection has a place on my poetry shelves. I choose to recite one of his most famous poems, as well as my favourite.
An Arundel Tomb
Side by side, their faces blurred,
The earl and countess lie in stone,
Their proper habits vaguely shown
As jointed armour, stiffened pleat,
And that faint hint of the absurd—
The little dogs under their feet.
Such plainness of the pre-baroque
Hardly involves the eye, until
It meets his left-hand gauntlet, still
Clasped empty in the other; and
One sees, with a sharp tender shock,
His hand withdrawn, holding her hand.
They would not think to lie so long.
Such faithfulness in effigy
Was just a detail friends would see:
A sculptor’s sweet commissioned grace
Thrown off in helping to prolong
The Latin names around the base.
They would not guess how early in
Their supine stationary voyage
The air would change to soundless damage,
Turn the old tenantry away;
How soon succeeding eyes begin
To look, not read. Rigidly they
Persisted, linked, through lengths and breadths
Of time. Snow fell, undated. Light
Each summer thronged the glass. A bright
Litter of birdcalls strewed the same
Bone-riddled ground. And up the paths
The endless altered people came,
Washing at their identity.
Now, helpless in the hollow of
An unarmorial age, a trough
Of smoke in slow suspended skeins
Above their scrap of history,
Only an attitude remains:
Time has transfigured them into
Untruth. The stone fidelity
They hardly meant has come to be
Their final blazon, and to prove
Our almost-instinct almost true:
What will survive of us is love.
If you want to visit the tomb it is situated in Chichester Cathedral. It is now widely, though not quite certainly, identified as that of Richard FitzAlan, 10th Earl of Arundel (d. 1376) and his second wife, Eleanor of Lancaster (d. 1372). In the Wikipedia article An Arundel Tomb there are a few interesting notes on what Larkin himself thought of the poem and the background to it.
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