Philip Larkin

At Grass

At Grass - context Summary

Horse Racing's Quiet Aftermath

Set against the world of horseracing, Larkin’s poem contrasts past public glory with present obscurity. Once celebrated in “Cups and Stakes and Handicaps,” horses now stand anonymous in shaded meadows, their names preserved only in records. The poem observes the quiet, unobserved lives they lead after retirement: no crowds, no stop-presses, only grooms tending them. It registers loss, memory, and the ordinary end of spectacle.

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The eye can hardly pick them out From the cold shade they shelter in, Till wind distresses tail and main; Then one crops grass, and moves about - The other seeming to look on - And stands anonymous again Yet fifteen years ago, perhaps Two dozen distances surficed To fable them : faint afternoons Of Cups and Stakes and Handicaps, Whereby their names were artificed To inlay faded, classic Junes - Silks at the start : against the sky Numbers and parasols : outside, Squadrons of empty cars, and heat, And littered grass : then the long cry Hanging unhushed till it subside To stop-press columns on the street. Do memories plague their ears like flies? They shake their heads. Dusk brims the shadows. Summer by summer all stole away, The starting-gates, the crowd and cries - All but the unmolesting meadows. Almanacked, their names live; they Have slipped their names, and stand at ease, Or gallop for what must be joy, And not a fieldglass sees them home, Or curious stop-watch prophesies : Only the grooms, and the grooms boy, With bridles in the evening come.

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