"The Whitsun Weddings" by Philip Larkin

Weddings as seen from a train journey on Whit Sunday.


That Whitsun, I was late getting away:
Not till about One-twenty on the sunlit Saturday
Did my three-quarters-empty train pull out,
All windows down, all cushions hot, all sense
Of being in a hurry gone. We ran
Behind the backs of houses, crossed a street
Of blinding windscreens, smelt the fish-dock; thence
The river's level drifting breadth began,
Where sky and Lincolnshire and water meet.

All afternoon, through the tall heat that slept
For miles inland,
A slow and stopping curve southwards we kept.
Wide farms went by, short-shadowed cattle, and
Canals with floatings of industrial froth;
A hothouse flashed uniquely: hedges dipped
And rose: and now and then a smell of grass
Displace the reek of buttoned carriage-cloth
Until the next town, new and nondescript,
Approached with acres of dismantled cars.

At first, I didn't notice what a noise
The weddings made
Each station that we stopped at: sun destroys
The interest of what's happening in the shade,
And down the long cool platforms whoops and skirls
I took for porters larking with the mails,
And went on reading. Once we started, though,
We passed them, grinning and pomaded, girls
In parodies of fashion, heels and veils,
All posed irresolutely, watching us go,

As if out on the end of an event
Waving goodbye
To something that survived it. Struck, I leant
More promptly out next time, more curiously,
And saw it all again in different terms:
The fathers with broad belts under their suits
And seamy foreheads; mothers loud and fat;
An uncle shouting smut; and then the perms,
The nylon gloves and jewelry-substitutes,
The lemons, mauves, and olive-ochres that

Marked off the girls unreally from the rest.
Yes, from cafes
And banquet-halls up yards, and bunting-dressed
Coach-party annexes, the wedding-days
Were coming to an end. All down the line
Fresh couples climbed abroad: the rest stood round;
The last confetti and advice were thrown,
And, as we moved, each face seemed to define
Just what it saw departing: children frowned
At something dull; fathers had never known

Success so huge and wholly farcical;
The women shared
The secret like a happy funeral;
While girls, gripping their handbags tighter, stared
At a religious wounding. Free at last,
And loaded with the sum of all they saw,
We hurried towards London, shuffling gouts of steam.
Now fields were building-plots. and poplars cast
Long shadows over major roads, and for
Some fifty minutes, that in time would seem

Just long enough to settle hats and say
I nearly died,
A dozen marriages got under way.
They watched the landscape, sitting side by side
-An Odeon went past, a cooling tower,
And someone running up to bowl -and none
Thought of the others they would never meet
Or how their lives would all contain this hour.
I thought of London spread out in the sun,
Its postal districts packed like squares of wheat:

There we were aimed. And as we raced across
Bright knots of rail
Past standing Pullmans, walls of blackened moss
Came close, and it was nearly done, this frail
Traveling coincidence; and what it held
Stood ready to be loosed with all the power
That being changed can give. We slowed again,
And as the tightened brakes took hold, there swelled
A sense of falling, like an arrow-shower
Sent out of sight, somewhere becoming rain.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Whitsun
• Weddings
• Philip
• Larkin
• poem
• poetry

[sum1otosh1]

This is a poem about life's journey into death. Not a poem about marriage

[SpokenVerse]

@sum1otosh1 What makes you think so? Your remark has no meaning unless you explain it. The poem appears to be about observing people getting married, culminating in "What it held stood ready to be loosed with all the power that being changed can give".

[sum1otosh1]

@SpokenVerse taking part. So it's also a commentary on the poet's place in life. The observer and recorder of life, joy, sorrow and death.

There is a very atheistic feel to the poem also. The point that Whit Sunday is a religious day yet the commentator is less interested in the god aspect, more interested in the human life around him.

[SpokenVerse]

@sum1otosh1I agree about the train journey being a metaphor but for marriage not mortality. People often do get married on Whit Sunday: he was reporting something that happened to him. The things you say about Larkin's preoccupations are true but I don't see them in this poem - no "dark tunnel", for instance.

My own observation is that Larkin's obsession with illness and death is not uncommon in those who do not have anybody that they care about more than they care about themselves.

[SuperMouthwash]

Larkin is nearly alone among recent poets in his overt distaste for sex (High Windows, This be the verse, Annus Mirabilis):- but he writes the most beautiful poem about marriage of the last fifty years (at least).

I'm sure Larkin would have relished the irony.

[SpokenVerse]

A distaste for sex? Maybe. But look up the stories of Brunette Coleman on Google.

[hyacinthegirl]

@sum1otosh1 I agree with SpokenVerse; Whit Sunday is a very common, almost cliched, day to get married, and that's the extent of its significance to the poem, I would say. It's a day when all of these parallel lives (that "would all contain this hour") fleetingly line up with one another before drifting apart again "like an arrow-shower ... somewhere becoming rain." I don't see atheism or mortality as coming into play here at all (for once). Quite the opposite, actually: he's reflecting on life.

[sum1otosh1]

@SpokenVerse "There we were aimed. And as we raced across Bright knots of rail. Past standing pullmans, walls of blackened moss Came close and is was nearly done; this frail travelling coincidence"

Has always reeked of death to me. It seems to fit with Larkin's preoccupation with death. It's one of those debates we could have until the end of time and still not find a real answer lol. Nonetheless a fantastic poem.

[sum1otosh1]

@SpokenVerse Oh that would take some time. The train journey itself is a metaphor for going through life. The things he sees outside the windows get more and more 'grown up' Starting with memories of childhood fun, playing cricket, getting married and finally the 'dark tunnel' There are lots of other things like industrial froth which represents sickness etc etc. Larkin's obsession with death is a hint towards this. It's quite a lonely point of view also. Being the spectator rather than

[Kenentigern7]

@SuperMouthwash Just came across yours. Not sure his was a distaste to my reading he was frightened of the exposure of self that sex would require of him. Amis who probably understood him best, man and boy, I think in his correspondence and his eulogy at Larkins funeral referred and continued to puzzle over larkins reticence at "sealing the deal". His most notorious line probably explains the core of this issue.

[trifelgeputinage]

Thank you, I know this poem by heart, it's my favourite ever poem, I love it, it's very close to my heart. I like your rerading.

I would like to share my rendition with you but I'm a perfectionist and there are one or two lines I need to brush up on after all these years!

Maybe soon though! : )