Larkin in the Corner

Philip Larkin rightly took his place in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey today, his memorial tablet set in place close to Thomas Hardy, Wilfred Owen, Henry James and D.H. Lawrence (whom he revered, for reasons best known to himself). He is also immediately below Edward Lear and very close to Lewis Carroll, so in illustrious and eccentrically mixed company.
 He is also, of course, among a good many poets whose names were expected to live for ever but have wellnigh disappeared - Thomas May, William Mason, Christopher Anstey, John Philips (no, not that one), William Gifford, to name a few. Not that it matters; Poets' Corner was a haphazard growth, never really planned, and standards have definitely tightened over the years - so much so that Larkin had a long wait for his place (a great deal longer than his bête noire Ted Hughes). But this was not owing to doubts about his poetic abilities; it was rather a by-product of the deeply silly hysteria provoked by the publication of Anthony Thwaite's edition of his letters and Andrew Motion's biography. That, happily, has now died down and a more nuanced assessment of Larkin the man has prevailed, along with a growing realisation that as a poet he was indeed the real thing. To quote Auden on a couple of other poets with bad reputations...
'Time that with this strange excuse
Pardoned Kipling and his views,
And will pardon Paul Claudel,
Pardons him for writing well.'
  And besides, Larkin has become a genuinely popular poet. His popularity might rest on the unequal tripod of This Be the Verse, Annus Mirabilis and An Arundel Tomb (whose last two lines inevitably supply the inscription on Larkin's tablet), but it is real enough, and many continue to read far beyond the greatest hits. If anyone deserves a place in Poets' Corner, it is Larkin. His poetry will surely live on.