Larkin about...

Life isn't all about politics. Life is sometimes about poetry.


This poem has a lot of meaning to me:



Side by side, their faces blurred,
The earl and countess lie in stone,
Their proper habits vaguely shown
As jointed armour, stiffened pleat,
And that faint hint of the absurd--
The little dogs under their feet.



Such plainess of the pre-baroque
Hardly involves the eye, until
It meets his left hand gauntlet, still
Clasped empty in the other; and
One sees, with sharp tender shock,
His hand withdrawn, holding her hand.



They would not think to lie so long.
Such faithfulness in effigy
Was just a detail friends could see:
A sculptor's sweet comissioned grace
Thrown off in helping to prolong
The Latin names around the base.



They would not guess how early in
Their supine stationary voyage
Their air would change to soundless damage,
Turn the old tenantry away;
How soon succeeding eyes begin
To look, not read. Rigidly they



Persisted, linked, through lengths and breadths
Of time. Snow fell, undated. Light
Each summer thronged the grass. A bright
Litter of birdcalls strewed the same
Bone-riddled ground. And up the paths
The endless altered people came,



Washing at their identity.
Now, helpless in the hollow of
An unarmorial age, a trough
Of smoke in slow suspended skeins
Above their scrap of history,
Only an attitude remains:



Time has transfigured them into
Untruth. The stone finality
They hardly meant has come to be
Their final blazon, and to prove
Our almost-instinct almost true:
What will survive of us is love.
-- Philip Larkin



My English teacher told us that this is one of Philip Larkin's most misunderstoof poems, but i couldn't remember why so i picked myself up a poetry book and had a look. I hope that you read the poem too and have some thoughts.


Philip Larkin was a man who appreciated irony, who was obsessed with death and whose poetry has had a great effect on me.


Arundel Tomb, despite what is commonly believed, is not a poem with 'the happy ending' that Larkin seems to be missing. The poem is one of falsehood and dishonesty, one which reflects on the passing of time and a void of love in our world, or at least in Larkin's. To me the poem reveals an insecurity that runs deep within us; that nothing actually survives of us, not love, not a memory, nothing.

The couple with their 'faces blurred' have become nothing but a part destroyed stone carving in a cathedral where people 'wash away' at their identity. The partners who lie together come from an age of stiffness, of tradition and lovelessness and could be seen as a sign of 'love' in a 'loveless age'. The reality of this poem is however not so rosy. The couple 'lie' side by side, a pun of course, as their very existence, dead together and holding hands is a falsehood- love has not survived but in fact their 'love' was a fallacy, a lie.
I have so much more to say, but too little time.

Bye bye Tony...we'll miss you

So the time has finally come, Tony Blair is stepping down as Prime Minister of our country after ten years at the helm.

We can look back at his time and really see a tale of the 'Good (minimum wage, free museums, devolution, Ken Livingstone, strong economy) the Bad (Further privatisation, restrictions on free speech, longer detention without trial, increased wealth gap, building new nuclear weopans, failing to act strongly on climate change, breaking manifesto promises (House of Lords anyone)) and the Ugly (Iraq)'.

I thought it was time for change, but instead.. we have Gordon Brown.

The time has now come for Politics to transcent national boundaries. Climate Change can only be adressed by drastic action, something Gordon Brown will not take. British politics is cornered by the majority of voters who WANT lower taxes, cheaper fuel, more roads and less Immigration. Instead of any sort of consensus on important issues and a drive to explain why WE ALL have a part to play in saving our world, our leaders cower in the face of right wing sentiment.

I would expect no less of the Conservative party and have little faith in them; but the Labour party is made up of people who care and I firmly believe it would be healthier to see a principled, social democratic Labour party fighting to the death on the issues that matter and losing, than see them win another election with Conservative policies.

The time has come for Labour (and Britain) to stand against Nuclear Weopans, neoimperialism, global inequality, human rights abuses (at home and abroad) and stand for Equality, Social Justice and Peace. Gordon Brown is not the man for this.

Let us not forget that Mt Brown has failed in ten years to raise 0.7% of our GDP to help International Development. Like all who have failed before him, he has been all talk. Mr Brown has failed to stand up for the rights of non-free-market countries and instead has followed the United States in trying to force poor countries to liberalise their markets (while we protect ours), only making them poorer still. Gordon Brown has been in charge of an economy that has seen the rich-poor divide widen.1.
Let us not forget we live in a deeply divided world, where nearly the whole of one continent cannot expect to live to 50 years old. Where half the world population lives on under $1 a day. These are the issues that need to be addressed.

Gordon said Britain must be:
"Strong in defence in fighting terrorism, upholding NATO, supporting our armed forces at home and abroad, and retaining our independent nuclear deterrent, In an insecure would we must and we will always have the strength to take all necessary long term decisions to ensure both stability and security."

In an insecure world me MUST NOT continue to develop weapons that have the capability to wipe out half of the world's population. We MUST make the long-term decision to be a nation of peace, stability and a world where security is guaranteed not just for the rich and the West but for all.


We have to change something. It is time for Britain (and the world) to start really caring. It is down to all of us to make sacrifice and really push for change.

1 http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/articlenews.aspx?type=topNews&storyid=2007-05-17T200822Z_01_L17547254_RTRUKOC_0_UK-BRITAIN-INEQUALITY.xml