Next, Please
Next, Please - meaning Summary
Expectation Meets Inevitable Loss
Larkin’s poem examines human eagerness for the future and habitual expectancy. We habitually anticipate successive “promises,” imagined as parade-like ships that approach but never deliver, leaving disappointment. The speaker realizes that instead of many fulfilling arrivals, only a single, ominous vessel comes: a black-sailed, silent ship that brings finality rather than reward. The poem contrasts hopeful anticipation with the solitary, inevitable interruption that ends expectation.
Read Complete AnalysesAlways too eager for the future, we Pick up bad habits of expectancy. Something is always approaching; every day Till then we say, Watching from a bluff the tiny, clear Sparkling armada of promises draw near. How slow they are! And how much time they waste, Refusing to make haste! Yet still they leave us holding wretched stalks Of disappointment, for, though nothing balks Each big approach, leaning with brasswork prinked, Each rope distinct, Flagged, and the figurehead wit golden tits Arching our way, it never anchors; it's No sooner present than it turns to past. Right to the last We think each one will heave to and unload All good into our lives, all we are owed For waiting so devoutly and so long. But we are wrong: Only one ship is seeking us, a black- Sailed unfamiliar, towing at her back A huge and birdless silence. In her wake No waters breed or break.
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