Age
Philip Larkin * Track #31 On Collected Poems
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Album Collected Poems
- #1“All catches alight”
Philip Larkin
- #2“This was your place of birth, this daytime palace”
Philip Larkin
- #3“The moon is full tonight”
Philip Larkin
- #4Dawn
Philip Larkin
- #5Conscript
Philip Larkin
- #6“Kick up the fire, and let the flames break loose”
Philip Larkin
- #7“The horns of the morning”
Philip Larkin
- #8Winter
Philip Larkin
- #9“Climbing the hill within the deafening wind”
Philip Larkin
- #10“Within the dream you said”
Philip Larkin
- #11“I put my mouth”
Philip Larkin
- #12Wedding Wind
Philip Larkin
- #13Places, Loved Ones
Philip Larkin
- #14Coming
Philip Larkin
- #15Dry-Point
Philip Larkin
- #16Born Yesterday - (To Sally Amis)
Philip Larkin
- #17Age
Philip Larkin
- #18Spring
Philip Larkin
- #19Deceptions
Philip Larkin
- #20Absences
Philip Larkin
- #21
Latest FacePhilip Larkin
- #22If, My Darling
Philip Larkin
- #23Arrivals, Departures
Philip Larkin
- #24Naturally the Foundation will Bear Your Expenses
Philip Larkin
- #25Broadcast
Philip Larkin
- #26Home is so Sad
Philip Larkin
- #27Toads Revisited
Philip Larkin
- #28Self’s The Man
Philip Larkin
- #29As Bad as a Mile
Philip Larkin
- #30Reference Back
Philip Larkin
- #31Afternoons
Philip Larkin
Age by Philip Larkin
Performed by
Philip LarkinAbout
“Age” is a poem about growing old and the poet’s concern for his legacy. He sees his early years as passing easily, using the simile of “white swaddling” that floats away. But later he feels that life was a game “I tired myself with joining!”. It implies weariness and isolation. The poet’s main con...
Age Annotated
My age fallen away like white swaddling
Floats in the middle distance, becomes
An inhabited cloud. I bend closer, discern
A lighted tenement scuttling with voices.
O you tall game I tired myself with joining!
Now I wade through you like knee-level weeds,
And they attend me, dear translucent bergs:
Silence and space. By now so much has flown
From the nest here of my head that I needs must turn
To know what prints I leave, whether of feet,
Or spoor of pads, or a bird’s adept splay.