Text of the Poem | MCMXIV (1914) By Philip Larkin | Eureka Study Aids

1. Those long uneven lines
2. Standing as patiently
3. As if they were stretched outside
4. The Oval or Villa Park,
5. The crowns of hats, the sun
6. On moustached archaic faces
7. Grinning as if it were all
8. An August Bank Holiday lark;

9. And the shut shops, the bleached
10. Established names on the sunblinds,
11. The farthings and sovereigns,
12. And dark-clothed children at play
13. Called after kings and queens,
14. The tin advertisements
15. For cocoa and twist, and the pubs
16. Wide open all day;

17. And the countryside not caring:
18. The place-names all hazed over
19. With flowering grasses, and fields
20. Shadowing Domesday lines
21. Under wheat’s restless silence;
22. The differently-dressed servants
23. With tiny rooms in huge houses,
24. The dust behind limousines;

25. Never such innocence,
26. Never before or since,
27. As changed itself to past
28. Without a word – the men
29. Leaving the gardens tidy,
30. The thousands of marriages,
31. Lasting a little while longer:
32. Never such innocence again.