I was browsing through a copy of Alan Bennett's Diaries in a bookshop last week, when I came upon an entry about W. B. Yeats. Bennett recorded that he had read somewhere that Yeats was once horrified to have been threatened with having to suffer a performance of his 'Wild Swans at Coole' sung by a massed choir of schoolchildren (it would appear that this performance never actually took place). Bennett wondered whether Philip Larkin had ever heard this story, whether it had prompted his own bitter joke that he expected one day after his death there would be a ceremonial recitation of his 'This Be The Verse' by 1,000 Girl Guides in the Royal Albert Hall.
Now that I'd like to see!
This Be The Verse
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.
Philip Larkin (1922-1985)
No comments:
Post a Comment