The Trees

Philip Larkin

The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.

Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too,
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.

Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.

Next 10 Poems

• Philip Larkin : The Whitsun Weddings
• Philip Larkin : This Be The Verse
• Philip Larkin : This Is The First Thing
• Philip Larkin : To Failure
• Philip Larkin : To My Wife
• Philip Larkin : To Put One Brick Upon Another
• Philip Larkin : Toads
• Philip Larkin : Toads Revisited
• Philip Larkin : Traumerei
• Philip Larkin : Triple Time

Previous 10 Poems

• Philip Larkin : The Spirit Wooed
• Philip Larkin : The School In August
• Philip Larkin : The Old Fools
• Philip Larkin : The North Ship
• Philip Larkin : The Mower
• Philip Larkin : The Little Lives Of Earth And Form
• Philip Larkin : The Importance Of Elsewhere
• Philip Larkin : The Explosion
• Philip Larkin : The Building
• Philip Larkin : Talking In Bed