Philip Larkin, like his poetic hero Hardy, was much haunted by the passing of the years, so it seems appropriate to welcome in 2024, that will be my own 80^th, with this poem that I have long admired for its typically Larkinesque combination of gloom redeemed by grace, and its skilfully sustained teasing out of an extended metaphor. Not that it offers any consolation either for the ageing process or for the lost opportunities of youth, but there it is: you don’t go to Larkin for comfort (think too of those bleak poems ‘Aubade’ and ‘The Old Fools’) but you do go for accomplishment and a certain face-the-facts courage. There may be resignation in the sentiment, but there is defiance in the artistry.

Skin

Obedient daily dress,
You cannot always keep
That unfakable young surface.
You must learn your lines –
Anger, amusement, sleep;
Those few forbidding signs

Of the continuous coarse
Sand-laden wind, time;
You must thicken, work loose
Into an old bag
Carrying a soiled name.
Parch then; be roughened; sag;

And pardon me, that I
Could find, when you were new,
No brash festivity
To wear you at, such as
Clothes are entitled to
Till the fashion changes.

Philip Larkin