This Be the Verse

“The Trees” by Philip Larkin (1974)

If “This Be The Verse” is a pessimistic poem that presents people as trapped in inherited patterns of thought and behavior, “The Trees” presents a different perspective through an analogy drawn from nature. Trees’ leaves die each year, but they manage to come alive again, as seen by the yearly addition of a tree ring. The speaker sees this as a message: “Last year is dead, they seem to say, / Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.”

“Dockery and Son” by Philip Larkin (1964)

The poem’s first-person speaker is Larkin himself, who visits his old college and hears that Dockery, the son of a former college acquaintance, is now enrolled as a student. The poem is a meditation on the different choices that the speaker and Dockery made—Dockery to have a son, and Larkin (following his own advice in “This Be The Verse”) deciding not to. Dockery thought that having a son would make him greater, but Larkin thought the opposite. He considers his own position, with “no son, no wife” and makes a general reflection that anticipates the mood of “This Be The Verse”: “Life is first boredom, then fear.”

“How Distant” by Philip Larkin (1974)

Larkin placed this poem next to “This Be The Verse” in High Windows. In it, the speaker observes young men leaving their homes in the morning; they are “keen / […] to get away / From married villages before morning.” This suggests the desire to “Get out as early as you can” in the other poem, but it is expressed in a much more positive way. It suggests that the young people just starting out can forge their own independent path in life, according to their goals and desires: “The huge decisions printed out by feet / Inventing where they tread.”

“Self’s the Man” by Philip Larkin (1964)

This poem presents a dismal portrait of family life as experienced by Arnold, a husband and father. He “wast[es] his life on work” so he can pay the bills, and then there are still so many other things that demand his time, like house repairs. He does not even have time to read the newspaper in peace. Larkin’s speaker (a stand-in for the poet) at first admits that Arnold must be less selfish than he, a bachelor, because he has taken on family responsibilities. But then he realizes that Arnold did that because he wanted to—he was just as set on pursuing his own ends as Larkin was. The difference is that Larkin’s speaker knows what his limits are and does not get caught up in an onerous family situation. He is “a better hand / At knowing what I can stand.”