To Put One Brick Upon Another
To Put One Brick Upon Another - meaning Summary
Small Acts, Large Assurance
The poem contrasts steady, practical labor with idle, anxious contemplation. Physically placing bricks occupies attention and dispels doubts about purpose, while sitting amid bricks during a storm heightens the certainty that something ought to be done. Larkin presents action as an antidote to rumination: doing small, concrete tasks removes existential worry and reveals moral clarity that inactivity only sharpens. The tone is plain and quietly persuasive.
Read Complete AnalysesTo put one brick upon another, Add a third and then a forth, Leaves no time to wonder whether What you do has any worth. But to sit with bricks around you While the winds of heaven bawl Weighing what you should or can do Leaves no doubt of it at all.
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