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
- Sketch—New Year’s Day, 1790 by Robert Burns
- Николай Некрасов – Возвращение
- Cloris, it is not thy disdaine by Sidney Godolphin
- Шекспир – Ты утоляешь мой голодный взор – Сонет 75
- Limericks by Robby Charters
- Morpheus poem – Alexander Pushkin
- Владимир Маяковский – Свидетельствую
- Михаил Лермонтов – Вечер после дождя
- April 18 by Sylvia Plath
- An Epitaph by William Cowper
- The Fool Rings His Bells by Walter de la Mare
- English Poetry. Thomas Moore. From “The Odes of Anacreon”. Ode 56. Томас Мур.
- The Gravy Train by Michael Levy
- A Tribute to Mr Murphy and the Blue Ribbon Army by William Topaz McGonagall
- “What ails you, Ocean, that nor near nor far” poem – Alfred Austin
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.