30 May 2016

Three poems written by Philip Larkin in
Lichfield (1): ‘Out in the lane I pause’

No 33 Cherry Orchard, Lichfield… the Larkin family moved here in 1940 during the Coventry Blitz (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Patrick Comerford

Many months ago, I wrote about the poet Philip Larkin (1922-1985) and how his family had lived for some time in Lichfield.

Peter Young, the former Town Clerk of Lichfield who retired last August after 28 years in office, has spoken on a number of occasions – to Lichfield Discovered (2014), to Lichfield Speakers’ Corner Group (2012), and to Lichfield Civic Society (2008) – about Philip Larkin and his associations with Lichfield.

Peter was a student at Hull University when Larkin was the Chief Librarian, and he jokes that Larkin once said of Lichfield: “God this place is dull.”

Larkin was born in Coventry, the only son and younger child of Sydney and Eva Larkin. Sydney Larkin (1884-1948) was from Lichfield and his family’s long-standing associations with Lichfield date back to 1757. Some Larkin families lived at both No 21 and No 49 Tamworth Street, Lichfield, and the family graves are in Saint Michael’s Churchyard.

Philip Larkin entered Saint John’s College, Oxford, in October 1940. That year, following the Coventry blitz, Sydney and Eva Larkin moved with their family to No 33 Cherry Orchard, Lichfield, the family home of an aunt and uncle. Sydney Larkin continued to work in Coventry, while his wife Eva stayed in Lichfield.

However, the house was too small for all the Larkins, and Philip Larkin moved out to another house in Cherry Orchard. There he had a room to himself and he regularly walked in to the centre of Lichfield to drink in the George.

The George Hotel, Lichfield ... a favoured drinking place for the poet Philip Larkin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

While he was in Lichfield, Larkin wrote three poems: ‘Christmas 1940,’ ‘Ghosts’ and ‘Out in the lane I pause,’ and I hope to look at these three poem over these three mornings.

‘Out in the lane I pause’ was written when Larkin returned to Lichfield for a Christmas holiday in 1940. In this poem, he stands alone under a starless sky beside the railway bridge, contemplating the futures of the ‘Girls and their soldiers from the town’ whose steps he can hear on the steep road towards the shops.

From his invisible vantage point, he contemplates the disappointments to come:

Each in their double Eden closed
They fail to see the gardener there
Has planted double error.


The critic and biographer of Larkin James Booth says there is a touch of John Donne about the Biblical rhetoric in this poem and in its complicated rhymed stanzas. Larkin imagines the lovers going their separate ways from each other, and turning back in the future with ‘puzzled tears’:

So through the dark I walk, and feel
The ending year about me lapse,
Dying, into formal shapes
Of field and tree;
And think I fear its faint appeal
Addressed to all who seek for joy,
But mainly me.


This poem also shows how Larkin was influenced by WH Auden, who writes: ‘Out on the lawn I lie in bed.’ And there are other echoes of Auden throughout the poem, and the stanza form seems to have been inspired by Auden’s ‘Brothers, who when the sirens roar.’

The narrow bridge over the railway line near Saint Michael’s Churchyard in Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

I wondered whether the bridge in the poem is the narrow bridge over the railway line at Rotten Row, near Saint Michael’s Churchyard. This bridge links the east end of Cherry Orchard with Greenhill, where the street then passes down the hill through Tamworth Street, past previous Larkin family homes, and into the centre of Lichfield.

The footbridge over the railway line near Levett’s Fields (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Or is the footbridge that leads into the Levett’s Field, and so on into the centre of Lichfield?

The railway bridge at Upper Saint John Street … another candidate for Larkin’s bridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Larkin does not say he is standing under the bridge, although if he is unseen, then it is more likely that this is the railway bridge at Upper Saint John Street, close to the west end of Cherry Orchard. Larkin would have passed under this bridge on his way to the George Hotel on Bird Street, but here there is no ‘steep road that travels down / Towards the shops …’

Larkin wrote this poem on the nights of 18 and 19 December 1940, and he wrote to James Ballard Sutton on 20 December: ‘I wrote a poem the last 2 nights which I will copy to out for you if I can find it. It’s highly moral of course.’

Larkin and Sutton met at school and remained close friends for years. A collection in Hull University of Larkin’s letters to Jim Sutton form the single most important body of evidence for Larkin’s formative years. The topics discussed include Larkin’s views on poetry, contemporary writers, jazz, family and friends and Larkin’s attitude to love and marriage.

This poem is included as ‘Poem XXX’ in Chosen Poems, 35 poems in typescript collected by Larkin in April 1941. But this poem written in Lichfield was never published during Larkin’s lifetime.

It was first published in Philip Larkin: Collected Poems, edited by Anthony Thwaite (1988), pp 253-254, and is included in Philip Larkin: Early Poems and Juvenilia, edited by AT Tolley (2005), pp 137-1138. More recently, it was included by Archie Burnett in Philip Larkin: The Complete Poems (London: Faber & Faber, 2012/2014).

‘Out in the lane I pause’

Out in the lane I pause: the night
Impenetrable round me stands,
And overhead, where roofline ends,
The starless sky
Black as a bridge: the only light
Gleams from the little railway
That runs nearby.

From the steep road that travels down
Towards the shops, I hear the feet
Of lonely walkers in the night
Or lingering pairs;
Girls and their soldiers from the town
Who in the shape of future years
Have equal shares;

But not tonight are questions posed
By them; no, nor the bleak escape
Through doubt from endless love and hope
To hate and terror;
Each in their double Eden closed
They fail to see the gardener there
Has planted Error;

Nor can their wish for quiet days
Be granted; though their motions kiss
This evening, and make happiness
Plain as a book,
They must pursue their separate ways
And flushed with puzzled tears, turn back
Their puzzled look.

And if, as of gipsy at a fair,
Sorry, I inquire for them
If things are really what they seem,
The open sky
And all the gasping, withered air
Can only answer: ‘It is so’
In brief reply.

So through the dark I walk, and feel
The ending year about me lapse,
Dying, into its formal shapes
Of field and tree;
And think I feel its faint appeal
Addressed to all who seek for joy,
But mainly me:

‘From those constellations turn
Your eyes, and sleep; for every man
Is living; and for peace upon
His life should rest;
This must everybody learn
For mutual happiness, that trust
Alone is best.’

Tomorrow:Christmas 1940

In pursuit of an afternoon espresso
and some summer sun by the sea

Balcarrick Beach in Donabate in the summer sunshine (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Patrick Comerford

Summer has arrive. Or so half of the north-side Dublin seems to think.

The temperatures in Dublin soared to 20 and a little above in the early afternoon. I had been in Christ Church Cathedral from early morning, preaching at the Cathedral Eucharist. As I stood outside the south porch door as the canon-in-residence for this week, greeting and welcoming visitors, the curious and the regular members of the congregation, I already felt that the sun was going to break through and that this was going to be a warm, bright and sunny Sunday.

After coffee in the crypt, two of us emerged from the darkness below the cathedral into the sunshine.

Initially, we had thought of having lunch in the city centre, and after yesterday’s busy day by the banks of the Shannon, we thought of snatching a few lazy hours in the back garden, sipping cold white wine.

But this sunny Sunday afternoon seemed like an opportunity that was too good to be missed.

And, to our chagrin, so did most Dubliners, it now appears.

We were now looking forward to lunch at the Olive on Strand Street in Skerries, before a walk along the beach in the sunshine, followed, perhaps, by ice creams drizzled with double espressos at Storm in a Teacup on the pier, before another walk around the harbour.

Little did we realise how are plans had been frustrated even before we got to Skerries.

We managed to get into Skerries but soon realised that every street and laneway was being closed off for a cycling race. Every parking space had been taken or was blocked off. As we drove around in circles, we thought we could be circling for hours. Would we ever get out? Certainly there was no prospect of lunch, and even less prospect of those by-now badly-needed double espressos.

Eventually, we found a gap near Holmpatrick Church, and headed south along the coast road. Although Loughshinny is beautiful, sunshine or no sunshine, there is nowhere for lunch, and certainly nowhere for double espressos.

We parked outside the Thatch on Main Street in Rush, but found to our disappointment that it is closed. There was a paper promise in the window that it is going to reopen soon under new management. But obviously not this afternoon, and certainly not in time for much-needed coffee.

Down at the harbour, there was no available parking wither. Not only were we not going to have lunch in Rush, but we were not going to have a walk on the beach there either.

Ardgillan Castle in Balbriggan? Or Donabate?

We eventually settled on Donabate. We stopped at Mrs Jones Farm Kitchen, at Ballymadrough, about 4 km from Donabate, close to Exit 4 on the M1. There the espressos are good, the panini are generous, and the sunshine made us feel exceptionally lazy as we lunched outdoors.

We finally stirred ourselves, and headed east towards Donabate. Once again, the roads were clogged with traffic, not because of any cycle race, but simply because so many people had realised that was the best and sunniest afternoon we have had so far this year, and this was a day to be beside the sea.

The queues for ice creams outside the shops in the village made me wonder whether more heat was being generated than would be sated by consuming the final purchases.

At first glance, the beach at Balcarrick seemed crowded this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Eventually, we found one of the few available parking spaces in new car park beside the Waterside Hotel, and walked down to the beach at Balcarrick.

The beach was crowded with families, adults, children, babies and dogs. The tide was out, the golden sand was firm beneath our feet, the sea and the skies were blue, and some children were brave enough to make their way into the water.

As we walked further south along the beach, towards the Malahide Estuary, the numbers of people began to thin out. If there had been some well-managed sunbeds, a few quiet beach bars, and someone walking up and down selling donuts and beer, this could have been a scene in the Mediterranean.

Certainly, it was a glorious afternoon to be by the sea, and all our efforts were worth it.

We returned home by another way … and there was still enough sunshine left in the early evening to enjoy that glass of cold white wine.

The beach at Balcarrick became less-and-less crowded the further south I walked along the shoreline (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)