Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TO MY WIFE, by PHILIP LARKIN


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TO MY WIFE, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Choice of you shuts up that peacock-fan
Subject(s): Marriage; Weddings; Husbands; Wives


Choice of you shuts up that peacock-fan
The future was, in which temptingly spread
All that elaborative nature can.
Matchless potential! but unlimited
Only so long as I elected nothing;
Simply to choose stopped all ways up but one,
And sent the tease-birds from the bushes flapping.
No future now. I and you now, alone.

So for your face I have exchanged all faces,
For your few properties bargained the brisk
Baggage, the mask-and-magic-man's regalia.
Now you become my boredom and my failure,
Another way of suffering, a risk,
A heavier-than-air hypostasis.





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