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.
End of the poem
15 random poems
- Федор Сологуб – Зачем, скажи
- Fareweel To A’Our Scottish Fame by Robert Burns
- Владимир Британишский – Когда потянет нас на компромисс
- Portrait From The Infantry
- Blow, Blow, Thou Winter Wind by William Shakespeare
- Orlando Furioso Canto 5 by Ludovico Ariosto
- Владимир Маяковский – Счастье искусств
- Because by Sara Teasdale
- Nationality by Mary Gilmore
- Ritual by Tala Bar
- Masks poem – Ezra Pound poems
- O Do Not Love Too Long by William Butler Yeats
- Chorus of Youths and Virgins poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- The Alien poem – Aldous Huxley poems | Poetry Monster
- Владимир Луговской – Обращение
Some external links:
Duckduckgo.com – the alternative in the US
Quant.com – a search engine from France, and also an alternative, at least for Europe
Yandex – the Russian search engine (it’s probably the best search engine for image searches).
Philip Arthur Larkin (1922-1985), Commander of the Order of the British Empire, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, Cavalier of the Order of the Companions of Honour, was an English poet, novelist, and librarian.