Comment 2 of 32, added on January 22nd, 2005 at 12:25 AM.
Part of what makes this a poem is the inadequacy of prose to convey it. There are nuances in almost every word.
What are the "high windows" really about? Where would such windows usually be seen? Why does the poem have that title? Why does the first stanza erupt with such coarse language? What is the long slide? What is paradise, again?
I think, before declaring the author in this instance to be cynical, some of these questions need to be answered.
I think the poem to have a more dazed and thoughtful tone, than one of cynicism. The young couple, surmised to be in an ongoing sexual relationship, is little more than a distraction to the narrator (not necessarily the poet!).
There is a tension that buds and begins to bloom, having alluded to birth control, with the line, "Bonds and gestures pushed to one side..." It begins to be clear, here, that the order of things has changed. This is what "old" refers to... not that the narrator is old and regrets it; only that so much else seems to be alarmingly new. Sex, in the narrator's prime of life, led to child-rearing. Faith and sexual mores were part of that life. To the narrator's present perception, this has ceased to be so.
I don't know if the "long slide" is a reference to anything in particular or not. But the phrase is used twice: once as "down the long slide to happiness" and again as "down the long slide like free bloody birds." "Happiness," however, is for the young. The priest "and his lot" inherit the simile, "like free bloody birds."
The disturbing juxtaposition of tonalities indicates a complete breakdown in the narrator's system of beliefs and faith. This is made more poignant and explicit by the reference to priests, and, ultimately, high windows. For there are few other places that one will see high windows, than in a church.
There may be an implicit assumption of knowledge wherein the narrator takes as common knowledge the practice of "looking up" to find God. But here, the high windows show only the "deep blue sky" (a bit of a cliché on Larkin's part, I'm afraid), which shows... nothing... nowhere... and is "endless"...
But, before judging that the narrator (again, not necessarily the poet!) is atheist, or has lost faith, or is in some antithetical stance as concerns God, it is necessary to look at the words used. "Nothing" -- no form. "Nowhere" -- cannot be pinned down in location and defined. "Endless" -- eternal.
It is not words that come to the narrator's mind, when he considers the "long slide like free bloody birds" of the priests. It is the high windows. It is the "sun-comprehending glass," which may, in its mute way, be said to "comprehend" something which is utterly incomprehensible to it, for the simple reason that it lets the light pass through.
I can sometimes too easily read more into a poem than is there, but it could be that there is a note of hope, at the end of this. In recognizing more completely that an old order of things has passed away, room is made in the narrator's mind for a more contemporary, more accurate conceptualization of God.
Be that the case or no, this is a poem about change, and faith.
foehn
Copyright © 2003-2008 Gunnar Bengtsson, Poetry Connection. All Rights Reserved.
Part of what makes this a poem is the inadequacy of prose to convey it. There are nuances in almost every word.
What are the "high windows" really about? Where would such windows usually be seen? Why does the poem have that title? Why does the first stanza erupt with such coarse language? What is the long slide? What is paradise, again?
I think, before declaring the author in this instance to be cynical, some of these questions need to be answered.
I think the poem to have a more dazed and thoughtful tone, than one of cynicism. The young couple, surmised to be in an ongoing sexual relationship, is little more than a distraction to the narrator (not necessarily the poet!).
There is a tension that buds and begins to bloom, having alluded to birth control, with the line, "Bonds and gestures pushed to one side..." It begins to be clear, here, that the order of things has changed. This is what "old" refers to... not that the narrator is old and regrets it; only that so much else seems to be alarmingly new. Sex, in the narrator's prime of life, led to child-rearing. Faith and sexual mores were part of that life. To the narrator's present perception, this has ceased to be so.
I don't know if the "long slide" is a reference to anything in particular or not. But the phrase is used twice: once as "down the long slide to happiness" and again as "down the long slide like free bloody birds." "Happiness," however, is for the young. The priest "and his lot" inherit the simile, "like free bloody birds."
The disturbing juxtaposition of tonalities indicates a complete breakdown in the narrator's system of beliefs and faith. This is made more poignant and explicit by the reference to priests, and, ultimately, high windows. For there are few other places that one will see high windows, than in a church.
There may be an implicit assumption of knowledge wherein the narrator takes as common knowledge the practice of "looking up" to find God. But here, the high windows show only the "deep blue sky" (a bit of a cliché on Larkin's part, I'm afraid), which shows... nothing... nowhere... and is "endless"...
But, before judging that the narrator (again, not necessarily the poet!) is atheist, or has lost faith, or is in some antithetical stance as concerns God, it is necessary to look at the words used. "Nothing" -- no form. "Nowhere" -- cannot be pinned down in location and defined. "Endless" -- eternal.
It is not words that come to the narrator's mind, when he considers the "long slide like free bloody birds" of the priests. It is the high windows. It is the "sun-comprehending glass," which may, in its mute way, be said to "comprehend" something which is utterly incomprehensible to it, for the simple reason that it lets the light pass through.
I can sometimes too easily read more into a poem than is there, but it could be that there is a note of hope, at the end of this. In recognizing more completely that an old order of things has passed away, room is made in the narrator's mind for a more contemporary, more accurate conceptualization of God.
Be that the case or no, this is a poem about change, and faith.
foehn