BOOKS
605
the poet's knowing precisely his own limitations. Mr. Larkin's poems,
in fact, are about this sense of limitation, and his reputation in England
is based on it. For he has caught perfectly the wan, underpaid, over–
taxed hopelessness that has smothered the country since the war; the
sourness of talent without possibilities, the gradual leveling down of all
standards to the neutral weariness of enlightened suburbanism. This
is
Mr. Larkin's theme and he manages to be very witty about it:
Sometimes you hear, fifth-hand
As epitaph:
He chucked up everything
And just cleared off,
And always the voice will sound
Certain you approve
This audacious, purifying,
Elemental move.
And they are right, I think.
We all hate home
And having to be there:
I detest my room,
Its specially chosen junk,
The good books, the good bed,
And my life, in perfect order:
So
to hear it said
He walked out on the whole crowd
Lealles me flushed and stirred,
Like
Then she undid her dress
Or
Take that you bastard;
Surely I can, if he did?
And that helps me stay
Sober and industrious.
But
1'd go to.day,
Yes, swagger the nut-strewn roads,
Crouch in the fo'c'sle
Stubbly with goodness, if
It weren't so artificial,
Such a deliberate step backwards
T ..
create an object:
