Coming
Coming :
On longer evenings,
Light, chill and yellow,
Bathes the serene
Foreheads of houses.
A thrush sings,
Laurel-surrounded
In the deep bare garden,
Its fresh-peeled voice
Astonishing the brickwork.
It will be spring soon,
It will be spring soon—
And I, whose childhood
Is a forgotten boredom,
Feel like a child
Who comes on a scene
Of adult reconciling,
And can understand nothing
But the unusual laughter,
And starts to be happy.
Philip Larkin (1922–1985) was born in Coventry, England. He is well-known as a leader of MOVEMENT in English Poetry in the fifties. The principal works of Philip Larkin are The North Ship, The Less Deceived, The Whitsun Weddings and High Windows. His themes - love, change, disenchantment, the mystery, the inexplicableness of the poet’s survival and death’s inevitability - are universally liked by the readers. The above poem has been taken from the volume, The Less Deceived, which establishes a kinship with the environment.
The word POETRY originates from a Greek word meaning TO MAKE. A poet is thus a maker and the poem something that is made or created. No single definition of poetry is possible but some characteristic features of poetry may be mentioned. Poetry has a musical quality with rhythm, pitch, metre and it may use figures of speech such as simile and metaphor. While quite a few poems in this selection are in traditional forms, the unit also includes modern poems that are free from formal restrictions.
