High Windows Read Free Page B

off being young until you retire,
    And however you bank your screw, the money you save
        Won’t in the end buy you more than a shave.
     
    I listen to money singing. It’s like looking down
        From long french windows at a provincial town,
    The slums, the canal, the churches ornate and mad
        In the evening sun. It is intensely sad.
     

Cut Grass
     
     
    C ut grass lies frail:
    Brief is the breath
    Mown stalks exhale.
    Long, long the death
     
    It dies in the white hours
    Of young-leafed June
    With chestnut flowers,
    With hedges snowlike strewn,
     
    White lilac bowed,
    Lost lanes of Queen Anne’s lace,
    And that high-builded cloud
    Moving at summer’s pace.
     

The Explosion
     
     
    O n the day of the explosion
    Shadows pointed towards the pithead:
    In the sun the slagheap slept.
     
    Down the lane came men in pitboots
    Coughing oath-edged talk and pipe-smoke,
    Shouldering off the freshened silence.
     
    One chased after rabbits; lost them;
    Came back with a nest of lark’s eggs;
    Showed them; lodged them in the grasses.
     
    So they passed in beards and moleskins,
    Fathers, brothers, nicknames, laughter,
    Through the tall gates standing open.
     
    At noon, there came a tremor; cows
    Stopped chewing for a second; sun,
    Scarfed as in a heat-haze, dimmed.
     
    The dead go on before us, they
    Are sitting in God’s house in comfort,
    We shall see them face to face —
     
    Plain as lettering in the chapels
    It was said, and for a second
    Wives saw men of the explosion
     
    Larger than in life they managed—
    Gold as on a coin, or walking
    Somehow from the sun towards them,
     
    One showing the eggs unbroken.
     

About the Author
     
     
    Philip Larkin was born in Coventry in 1922 and was educated at King Henry VIII School, Coventry, and St John’s College, Oxford. As well as his volumes of poems, which include The Whitsun Weddings and High Windows, he wrote two novels, Jill and A Girl in Winter, and two books of collected journalism: All What Jazz: A Record Library, and Required Writing: Miscellaneous Prose. He worked as a librarian at the University of Hull from 1955 until his death in 1985. He was the best-loved poet of his generation, and the recipient of innumerable honours, including the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry, and the WH Smith Award.

by Philip Larkin
     
     
    poetry
    THE NORTH SHIP
    XX POEMS
    THE FANTASY POETS NO. 21
    THE LESS DECEIVED
    (The Marvell Press)
    THE WHITSUN WEDDINGS
    HIGH WINDOWS
    COLLECTED POEMS
    (Edited by Anthony Thwaite)
    THE OXFORD BOOK OF TWENTIETH-CENTURY ENGLISH VERSE (ed.)
     
    fiction
    JILL
    A GIRL IN WINTER
    TROUBLE AT WILLOW GARLES
    (edited by James Booth)
     
    non-fiction
    ALL WHAT JAZZ: A RECORD DIARY 1961–71
    REQUIRED WRITING: MISCELLANEOUS PIECES 1955–82
    SELECTED LETTERS OF PHILIP LARKIN 1940–85
    (edited by Anthony Thwaite)
    FURTHER REQUIREMENTS:
    INTERVIEWS, BROADCASTS, STATEMENTS AND REVIEWS 1952–85
    (edited by Anthony Thwaite)

Copyright
     
     
    First published in 1974
by Faber and Faber Ltd
Bloomsbury House
74–77 Great Russell Street
London WC1B 3DA
This ebook edition first published in 2012
     
    All rights reserved
© The Estate of Philip Larkin, 1974
     
    The right of Philip Larkin to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
     
    This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly
     
    ISBN 978–0–571–26324–0