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Comment 4 of 4, added on March 3rd, 2007 at 2:01 PM.
The first time I read “Days”, it left me confused. I had to think about it for a while in order to make sense of it. In the poem, days are given a different meaning: “Days are where we live” They are also personified: “They come, they wake us.” “Days” represent life and the inevitability if it. We are born into days and we die in days. “They come, they wake us./ Time and time over” No matter what we do, there is no way we can prevent whatever is going to happen. “Where can we live in but days?” There is nowhere else to live in but days: We have no choice, no control over our lives. We never chose to be born and we will not have chosen to die. “Solving” this brings “the priest and the doctor”, a scientist and a religious man, two men of different –perhaps opposing- fields that study life, “running over the fields”: It brings them to realize the truth and makes them leave whatever they are doing and try to enjoy life.
Onur Aydın from Turkey
Comment 3 of 4, added on May 18th, 2006 at 11:14 AM.
The second stanza can be interpreted in many different ways,such as it can be seen as that the answer to the question brings the two highly educated men to the brink of insanity. This may then send them ‘running over the hills’ which can be viewed as a metaphor, or a suggestion that they have lost the plot. A worrying thought that such as question can cause illness in people of such intelligence.
Truelly brilliant work!!!
James Williams from United Kingdom
Comment 2 of 4, added on January 24th, 2006 at 6:12 AM.
this poem is easy to understand and i used it for my final test project ^_^ i love Philip Larkin's poem...
Ricca from Indonesia
Comment 1 of 4, added on June 25th, 2005 at 11:20 AM.
Given that "solving" has not been used entirely accidentally, what - if anything - is one supposed to infer about Larkin's thoughts on the possibilities of "answering" the question he has posed? And who - if anyone apart from oneself - does Larkin suppose may be qualified so to do?
cloten from United Kingdom
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Copyright © 2003-2008 Gunnar Bengtsson, Poetry Connection. All Rights Reserved.
The first time I read “Days”, it left me confused. I had to think about it for a while in order to make sense of it. In the poem, days are given a different meaning: “Days are where we live” They are also personified: “They come, they wake us.” “Days” represent life and the inevitability if it. We are born into days and we die in days. “They come, they wake us./ Time and time over” No matter what we do, there is no way we can prevent whatever is going to happen. “Where can we live in but days?” There is nowhere else to live in but days: We have no choice, no control over our lives. We never chose to be born and we will not have chosen to die. “Solving” this brings “the priest and the doctor”, a scientist and a religious man, two men of different –perhaps opposing- fields that study life, “running over the fields”: It brings them to realize the truth and makes them leave whatever they are doing and try to enjoy life.
Onur Aydın from Turkey