Night Music
Night Music - meaning Summary
Night: Living and Dead
Larkin's "Night Music" observes a nocturnal scene where wind stirs black poplars as the living sleep and the dead lie undisturbed. The poem contrasts human absence with the active, sibilant life of trees and the distant, impersonal singing of stars. Its spare, watchful voice registers solitude and a kind of cosmic indifference: natural forces continue their music while the human world remains unquickened and removed from that sound.
Read Complete AnalysesAt one the wind rose, And with it the noise Of the black poplars. Long since had the living By a thin twine Been led into their dreams Where lanterns shine Under a still veil Of falling streams; Long since had the dead Become untroubled In the light soil. There were no mouths To drink of the wind, Nor any eyes To sharpen on the stars' Wide heaven-holding, Only the sound Long sibilant-muscled trees Were lifting up, the black poplars. And in their blazing solitude The stars sang in their sockets through the night: `Blow bright, blow bright The coal of this unquickened world.'
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