Youtor
Aubade read by Philip Larkin
>> YOUR LINK HERE: ___ http://youtube.com/watch?v=IDr_SRhJs80
Aubade • I work all day, and get half-drunk at night. • Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare. • In time the curtain-edges will grow light. • Till then I see what's really always there: • Unresting death, a whole day nearer now, • Making all thought impossible but how • And where and when I shall myself die. • Arid interrogation: yet the dread • Of dying, and being dead, • Flashes afresh to hold and horrify. • The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse • The good not done, the love not given, time • Torn off unused - nor wretchedly because • An only life can take so long to climb • Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never; • But at the total emptiness for ever, • The sure extinction that we travel to • And shall be lost in always. Not to be here, • Not to be anywhere, • And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true. • This is a special way of being afraid • No trick dispels. Religion used to try, • That vast, moth-eaten musical brocade • Created to pretend we never die, • And specious stuff that says No rational being • Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing • That this is what we fear - no sight, no sound, • No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with, • Nothing to love or link with, • The anasthetic from which none come round. • And so it stays just on the edge of vision, • A small, unfocused blur, a standing chill • That slows each impulse down to indecision. • Most things may never happen: this one will, • And realisation of it rages out • In furnace-fear when we are caught without • People or drink. Courage is no good: • It means not scaring others. Being brave • Lets no one off the grave. • Death is no different whined at than withstood. • Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape. • It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know, • Have always known, know that we can't escape, • Yet can't accept. One side will have to go. • Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring • In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring • Intricate rented world begins to rouse. • The sky is white as clay, with no sun. • Work has to be done. • Postmen like doctors go from house to house. • Philip Larkin • All photos taken by me: http://www.flickr.com/hoolebronx • (c) hoolebronx 2009
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