Up at the holy end; the small neat organ;
And a tense, musty, unignorable silence,
Brewed God knows how long. Hatless, I take off
My cycle-clips in awkward reverence,

Move forward, run my hand around the font.
From where I stand, the roof looks almost new –
Cleaned, or restored? Someone would know: I don’t.
Mounting the lectern, I peruse a few
Hectoring large-scale verses, and pronounce
‘Here endeth’ much more loudly than I’d meant.
The echoes snigger briefly. Back at the door
I sign the book, donate an Irish sixpence,
Reflect the place was not worth stopping for.

Yet stop I did: in fact I often do,
And always end much at a loss like this,
Wondering what to look for; wondering, too,
When churches fall completely out of use
What we shall turn them into, if we shall keep
A few cathedrals chronically on show,
Their parchment, plate and pyx in locked cases,
And let the rest rent-free to rain and sheep.
Shall we avoid them as unlucky places?

Or, after dark, will dubious women come
To make their children touch a particular stone;
Pick simples for a cancer; or on some
Advised night see walking a dead one?
Power of some sort or other will go on
In games, in riddles, seemingly at random;
But superstition, like belief, must die,
And what remains when disbelief has gone?
Grass, weedy pavement, brambles, buttress, sky,

A shape less recognisable each week,
A purpose more obscure. I wonder who
Will be the last, the very last, to seek
This place for what it was; one of the crew
That tap and jot and know what rood-lofts were?
Some ruin-bibber, randy for antique,
Or Christmas-addict, counting on a whiff
Of gown-and-bands and organ-pipes and myrrh?
Or will he be my representative,

Bored, uninformed, knowing the ghostly silt
Dispersed, yet tending to this cross of ground
Through suburb scrub because it held unspilt
So long and equably what since is found
Only in separation – marriage, and birth,
And death, and thoughts of these – for which was built
This special shell? For, though I’ve no idea
What this accoutred frowsty barn is worth,
It pleases me to stand in silence here;

A serious house on serious earth it is,
In whose blent air all our compulsions meet,
Are recognised, and robed as destinies.
And that much never can be obsolete,
Since someone will forever be surprising
A hunger in himself to be more serious,
And gravitating with it to this ground,
Which, he once heard, was proper to grow wise in,
If only that so many dead lie round.

This comment under the above YouTube video details exactly how I perceived the poem before coming to University: "moving and scary. It is not about defending the rapist or sympathizing with his desires for fulfillment saying that they are deceptive. we can see the futility of chasing the fulfillment of a desire with the idea that performing the act would lead to satisfaction. It is something we do everyday. It is a concept on which the entire consumer based society is structured. Larkin separates the strands of desire, fulfillment and action and his genius lies in his craftsmanship and asethetic sensibility."

Before coming to University, I also held this simplistic view of the poem, 'Toads'. Whilst the review is accurate, it does not hold any critical depth, and simply states what the poem is about, rather than a thorough critical analysis of how and why Larkin used the techniques that he enlisted throughout. I myself, when I studied this poem during A-Levels, did not take into account what was happening in Larkin's life in 1953 (the year 'Toads' was written) to have this deep detestation about having to work.

Through Marcuse's words, this opened up another discussion for me as to how the concept of work is socially ingrained within us, as it has been dictated since the start of capitalism, that to live, you must earn first. Marcuse details that work is an essential part of us, something which I did not consider when studying 'Toads' during A-Levels. Due to my now understanding of 'civilisation', work is not only something distressing to simply just the speaker but is a shared experience for all, as work is instilled within all of us, regardless if we wish to do it or not. As well as this, in 'Why Marx' by Eagleton, he details that Sigmund Freud believed that without labour, we would simply serve our libidos and so it was economic necessity which made us engage with social activity, again allowing me to understand another level of 'Toads.'

Before University, I did understand the meaning of this poem as this was one of the poem's I focused most on and gave most thought to during my time in A-Level's. I knew of Larkin's aversion to religion and how 'Church Going' is not really focused on religion, but rather the effect of the absence of religion upon our society.

In the novel, Freud states "Religion, in this reading, is the universal human obsessional neurosis; like the child's, it stemmed from the Oedipus complex, the relationship to the father." (Freud, 2004, p.55)

This adds another level of depth for me, as it further explores how when analysing 'Church Going', I can discuss how there seems to be an inherent part of human society that is intertwined with religion, almost an obsession with how it explains the meaning of life. Freud's work further shows how even if church is 'going' away from us, there will still be a history of religion forever threaded with human society.

At first, Larkin had named this poem 'The Less Deceived' before changing it to 'Deceptions', showing that the themes in this poem are central to the collection as a whole. But, the intertextuality comes into play as 'The Less Deceived' is a reference from Shakespeare's Hamlet, whereby Ophelia claimed that she was the 'more deceived' of the two. This suggests that Larkin perhaps wished for 'Deceptions' to be the poem on which he educated and made his readers 'less deceived' to avoid Ophelia's fate. If I learnt this during my A-level studies, it would have added much more depth onto my analysis.

I had a very simplistic view of 'Dry-Point', as when annotating the poem, we simply explored purely what Larkin was telling us, rather than an in-depth review as to why and what he meant through this poem.

We went through every stanza and only picked out select words to analyse, rather than analysing all of the poem, to figure out his complete meaning.

Endlessly, time-honoured irritant,
A bubble is restively forming at your tip.
Burst it as fast as we can –
It will grow again until we begin dying.

'Endlessly'- An uncontrollable, constant sexual desire.

'Time-honoured irritant'- A juxtaposition of typical sexual release, seems disappointed and frustrated by his release.

'A bubble is restively forming at your tip'- It seems to describe the peak of his sexual release.

'Burst it as fast as we can'- It is something that he perhaps only does because it is a societal pressure. 'As fast'- Something he finds no pleasure in doing so.

'It will grow again until we begin dying'- It is a constant in our lives, sexual desire is not something we can escape until death.

I hold the same opinion of the poem as this reviewer. Compared to the rest of the poems within this collection, 'Wedding-Wind' holds a much lighter tone and ends in a hopeful note. As a Movement writer, Larkin typically wrote poems that rejected romanticism and focused on realism. However, this poem demonstrates the essence of romanticism, through its use of pastoral imagery as well as the fact that this is his only poem in the collection where the speaker is believed to be a woman, hence why, like the reviewer, I hold this poem in high regard, compared to his other poems.

'Wedding-Wind' is a poem that seems to be set in an olden agriculture environment, whereby William's definition can be applied. 'Wedding-Wind includes the pastoral imagery of "carry a chipped pail to the chicken-run" and "my apron and hanging cloths on the line", which turns the poem into an object of culture, as the woman within this poem 'tends' to the work on the farm and finds peace within doing so. It allows me to culturally analyse the poem instead of just critically analyse, as culture seems to define the speaker's life in the second stanza.

In terms of 'Wedding Wind', in the first stanza, the speaker feels awkward, unhappy and unfulfilled by the lack of what is expected on a wedding night. Larkin uses the juxtaposed romantic imagery, 'twisted candlestick' to highlight that lack of desired intimacy.

However, in the second stanza, the speaker now does feel fulfilled by her role as a married woman as her desires are completed:

"Can even death dry up
These new delighted lakes, conclude
Our kneeling as cattle by all-generous waters?"