[New-Poetry] Poems by Years

[Anny Ballardini]

MCMXIV*

By Philip Larkin

 

 

Those long uneven lines

Standing as patiently

As if they were stretched outside

The Oval or Villa Park,

The crowns of hats, the sun

On moustached archaic faces 

Grinning as if it were all

An august bank Holiday lark;

 

And the shut shops, the bleached,

Established names on the sunblinds,

The farthings and sovereigns,

And dark-clothed children at play

Called after kings and queens,

The tin advertisements

For cocoa and twist, and the pubs

Wide ope all day;

 

And the countryside not caring:

The place-names all hazed over

With flowering grasses, and fields

Shadowing Domesday lines

Under what’s restless silence;

The differently-dressed servants

With tiny rooms in huge houses,

The dust behind limousines;

 

Never such innocence,

Never before or since,

As changed itself to past

Without a word – the men

Leaving the gardens tidy,

The thousands of marriages

Lasting a little while longer

Never such innocence again.

 

 

  a.. 1914 - In roman numerals, as incised on stone memorials to the dead of World War I
  b.. The Oval or Villa Park – London cricket ground and Birmingham football ground
  c.. The farthings and sovereigns – At that time, the least valuable and the most valuable British coins, respectively
  d.. Shadowing Domesday lines – The still visible boundaries of medieval farmers’ long and narrow plots, ownership of which is recorded in William the Conqueror’s Domesday Book (1085-86)
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