It's a good question about greenness and grief! Which got me thinking about my favourite bit of the poem: 'the unresting castles'. I wonder if this is one of Larkin's furtive recollections of once having enjoyed some French Symbolist poetry -- specifically, the poetic 'grief' of Rimbaud's 'O saisons, ô châteaux' (which is also about 'something almost being said').
Still on that last verse, for me the verb “thresh” stands out (bit of a tongue twister that line). As you say, there’s a not so hidden violence and pain here, there is threshing corn (Keats, To Autumn?), even maybe an echo of thrash if that’s not going too far. A critic (Christopher Ricks? Even Frost?) once said it’s all in the verbs.
YES, exactly, so much IMM:AHH in here.
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.
If you make it anaphora here, you get Tennyson:
Their recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.
This repeats in the poem time and again:
They have their day and cease to be:
They are but broken lights of thee,
Sleep, gentle heavens, before the prow;
Sleep, gentle winds, as he sleeps now,
And how my life had droop’d of late,
And he should sorrow o’er my state
etc. And anyhow, the idea of being 'almost said' is the keynote of Tennyson's grief:
"Could I have said while he was here" -- etc.
It's a good question about greenness and grief! Which got me thinking about my favourite bit of the poem: 'the unresting castles'. I wonder if this is one of Larkin's furtive recollections of once having enjoyed some French Symbolist poetry -- specifically, the poetic 'grief' of Rimbaud's 'O saisons, ô châteaux' (which is also about 'something almost being said').
This is great. I enjoyed following you think through the poem with this sort of openness and curiosity.
Thanks Derek. Funny thing is I’ve never really liked it: in a way this is me trying to work out why.
Great piece, Jem. Frost seems to have had similar sentiments on the griefs of spring.
Nothing Gold Can Stay
By Robert Frost
Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
Great analysis. Possibly the grief is because "The year is dead, they seem to say."
Love the poem and really enjoyed your analysis of and thoughts about it 🍃
Still on that last verse, for me the verb “thresh” stands out (bit of a tongue twister that line). As you say, there’s a not so hidden violence and pain here, there is threshing corn (Keats, To Autumn?), even maybe an echo of thrash if that’s not going too far. A critic (Christopher Ricks? Even Frost?) once said it’s all in the verbs.