Church Going

First two verses of the poem "Church Going" by Philip Larkin, read out by Joana Roß:

Once I am sure there's nothing going on
I step inside, letting the door thud shut.
Another church: matting, seats, and stone,
And little books; sprawlings of flowers, cut
For Sunday, brownish now; some brass and stuff
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.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Church
• Joana
• Going
• Roß
• Philip
• Larkin
• Bayreuth
• Steffen
• Nop
• Schwarz
• Ride
• Musik
• TwoBeOne

[SailingJo]

I did it for a presentation at school and I did purposefully only choose the first two verses to leave a certain impression. Of course it is not the impression you get when having read the whole poem! but it was not my intention to show the whole poem in this context...

[jonno52]

I have to agree, poetxyz. Normally "if you can't say something nice, say nothing at all". But this is just not a poem you can present odd bits of. Its power lies in its totality, and increasing sense of strangeness & complexity, working up to the bleak last line.

[Cranmerian]

Most un-anglican church

[poetxyz]

This is only first of several verses of this magnificent poem. Thumbs down to this presentation.