Bliss

In the pocket of my blazer
Is a purse of silken brown
With ten shillings (from my birthday)
And my weekly half-a-crown.

In the toolshed by the stable
Stands my Junior B.S.A.,
See, I leap, I mount, I pedal! -
And the wind bears me away.

On the left side of the High Street
W. H. Smith & Son
Have their local branch, and there I'll
Stop, and lock my bike, and run

Right up to the glass-topped counter:
'Have you Colonel Stewart's book
Called "Handling Horses"?. . . Yes - behind you -
It's twelve and six - - you needn't look - - '

To Jacinth

The cloakroom pegs are empty now,
And locked the classroom door,
The hollow desks are dim with dust
And slow across the floor
A sunbeam creeps, until
The sun is seen no more.

Who did their hair before this glass?
Who scratched: 'Elaine loves Jill'
One drowsy summer sewing-class
With scissors on the sill?
Who practised this piano
Whose notes are now so still?

Ah, notices are taken down,
And score-books stowed away,

And seniors grow tomorrow
From juniors today,
And even swimming-groups can fade,
Games-mistresses turn grey.

Femmes Damnées

The fire is ash: the early morning sun
Outlines the patterns on the curtains, drawn
The night before. The milk's been on the step,
The 'Guardian' in the letter-box, since dawn.

Upstairs, the beds have not been touched, and thence
Builders' estates, and the main road, are seen,
With labourers, petrol-pumps, a Green Line 'bus,
And plots of cabbages set in between.

But the living-room is ruby: there upon
Cushions from Harrod's, strewn in tumbled heaps
Around the floor, smelling of smoke and wine,
Rosemary sits. Her hands are clasped. She weeps.

She stares about her: round the decent walls
(The ribbon lost,her pale gold hair falls down)
Sees books and photos: 'Dance'; 'The Rhythmic Life';
Miss Rachel Wilson in a cap and gown.

Stretched out before her, Rachel curls and curves,
Eyelids and lips apart, her glances filled
With satisfied ferocity: she smiles,
As beasts smile on the prey they have just killed.

The marble clock has stopped. The curtained sun
Burns on: the room grows hot. There, it appears,
A vase of flowers has spilt, and soaked away.
The only sound heard is the sound of tears.

· From Sugar and Spice, a poem sequence, written in 1943 and published for the first time this month in Trouble at Willow Gables and Other Fictions by Philip Larkin, edited by James Booth.