‘At Grass’ by Philip Larkin

[betlarge]

The eye can hardly pick them out
From the cold shade they shelter in,
Till wind distresses tail and main;
Then one crops grass, and moves about
– The other seeming to look on –
And stands anonymous again

Yet fifteen years ago, perhaps
Two dozen distances surficed
To fable them: faint afternoons
Of Cups and Stakes and Handicaps,
Whereby their names were artificed
To inlay faded, classic Junes –

Silks at the start: against the sky
Numbers and parasols: outside,
Squadrons of empty cars, and heat,
And littered grass : then the long cry
Hanging unhushed till it subside
To stop-press columns on the street.

Do memories plague their ears like flies?
They shake their heads. Dusk brims the shadows.
Summer by summer all stole away,
The starting-gates, the crowd and cries –
All but the unmolesting meadows.
Almanacked, their names live; they

Have slipped their names, and stand at ease,
Or gallop for what must be joy,
And not a fieldglass sees them home,
Or curious stop-watch prophesies:
Only the grooms, and the grooms boy,
With bridles in the evening come.

Mike

[seabird]

Thanks, Mike.

Col

[yeats]

Gamble would have been proud of that one.

[Steeplechasing]

Great stuff, Mike. I didn’t know old PL was into racing…

They buck you up, your sire and dam.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you

[Drone]

That’s a wonderful and unusually contented poem from Happy Phil but still choc-full with his yearning whimsy

[betlarge]

They buck you up, your sire and dam.

Mike

[Author]

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