Continuing to live — that is, repeat
A habit formed to get necessaries —
Is nearly always losing, or going without.
It varies.
This loss of interest, hair, and enterprise —
Ah, if the game were poker, yes,
You might discard them, draw a full house!
But it’s chess.
And once you have walked the length of your mind, what
You command is clear as a lading-list.
Anything else must not, for you, be thought
To exist.
And what’s the profit? Only that, in time,
We half-identify the blind impress
All our behavings bear, may trace it home.
But to confess,
On that green evening when our death begins,
Just what it was, is hardly satisfying,
Since it applied only to one man once,
And that one dying.
End of the poem
15 random poems
- Василий Жуковский – Бедный певец
- Before the Altar poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Paralytic by Sylvia Plath
- The Land of the Exile by Rabindranath Tagore
- Омар Хайям – До коих пор униженный позор терпеть
- Ольга Берггольц – Церковь “Дивная” в Угличе
- Teacher
- The Love That Goes A-Begging by Sara Teasdale
- Nothing is Real by Rixa White
- Юлия Друнина – Чтоб человек от стужи не застыл
- A Birthday Song. To S. G. by Sidney Lanier
- The Rice Boat
- Николай Глазков – Покуда карты не раскрыты
- Love’s Fitfulness poem – Alfred Austin
- Song—A Bottle and Friend by Robert Burns
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.