How Distant
Philip Larkin 1922 (Coventry) – 1985 (Hull)
How distant, the departure of young men
Down valleys, or watching
The green shore past the salt-white cordage
Rising and falling,
Cattlemen, or carpenters, or keen
Simply to get away
From married villages before morning,
Melodeons play
On tiny decks past fraying cliffs of water
Or late at night
Sweet under the differently-swung stars,
When the chance sight
Of a girl doing her laundry in the steerage
Ramifies endlessly.
This is being young,
Assumption of the startled century
Like new store clothes,
The huge decisions printed out by our feet
Inventing where they tread,
The random windows conjuring a street.
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Submitted by RobertHaigh on June 10, 2020
Modified on March 23, 2023
- 30 sec read
- 91 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | XABA XCAC XDXD BEXE XFXF |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 594 |
Words | 100 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
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"How Distant" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/53614/how-distant>.
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