it makes us weep a bit for gratitude

First Sight

Lambs that learn to walk in snow
When their bleating clouds the air
Meet a vast unwelcome, know
Nothing but a sunless glare.
Newly stumbling to and fro
All they find, outside the fold,
Is a wretched width of cold.

As they wait beside the ewe,
Her fleeces wetly caked, there lies
Hidden round them, waiting too,
Earth's immeasureable surprise.
They could not grasp it if they knew,
What so soon will wake and grow
Utterly unlike the snow.

--Philip Larkin

Comments

[rb]

this is such a great poem, I nearly blogged it last week after hearing an after-dinner discussion between an organic sheep farmer and a gourmet chef about Passover Lamb but got lost on the way to the computer (my Larkin lives in another room)

thanks for posting it ....

[JL]

You're welcome. It's one of my absolute favorites by him, at times outweighing some of the famous setpieces ("Dockery and Son," "The Whitsun Weddings," etc.) It's just so . . . liquid and soft, such sensitivity in word sounds chosen ("fleeces wetly caked," "Utterly unlike the snow," etc.) The last line in particular, coming after the absolutely simplicity of the preceding two, has a great concluding rhythm.

[Bunny Smedley]

Just a quick line to second the thanks above. What a truly beautiful poem - and a perfect choice as Easter approaches. I'd never read this before but am so glad to have seen it now.