'The air deals blows...'

 On a blustery, rainy, altogether miserable afternoon, I found myself thinking, inevitably, of Philip Larkin. I knew his uncollected autumn poem of 1961 – 

'And now the leaves suddenly lose strength.
Decaying towers stand still, lurid, lanes-long,
And seen from landing windows, or the length
Of gardens, rubricate afternoons. New strong
Rain-bearing night-winds come: then
Leaves chase warm buses, speckle statued air,
Pile up in corners, fetch out vague broomed men
Through mists at morning.

And no matter where goes down,
The sallow lapsing drift in fields
Or squares behind hoardings, all men hesitate
Separately, always, seeing another year gone –
Frockcoated gentleman, farmer at his gate,
Villein with mattock, soldiers on their shields,
All silent, watching the winter coming on.'

But there is also this one, 'Autumn', another uncollected poem, written in 1953, which emphasises the violence of the season –

'The air deals blows: surely too hard, too often?
No: it is bent on bringing summer down.
Dead leaves desert in thousands, outwards, upwards,
Numerous as birds; but the birds fly away,

And the blows sound on, like distant collapsing water,
Or empty hospitals falling room by room
Down in the west, perhaps, where the angry light is.
Then rain starts; the year goes suddenly slack.

O rain, o frost, so much has still to be cleared:
All this ripeness, all this reproachful flesh,
And summer, that keeps returning like a ghost
Of something death has merely made beautiful,

And night skies so brilliantly spread-eagled
With their sharp hint of a journey–all must disperse
Before the season is lost and anonymous,
Like a London court one is never sure of finding

But none the less exists, at the back of the fog,
Bare earth, a lamp, scrapers. Then it will be time
To seek there that ill-favoured, curious house,
Bar up the door, mantle the fat flame,

And sit once more alone with sprawling papers,
Bitten-up letters, boxes of photographs,
And the case of butterflies so rich it looks
As if all summer settled there and died.

The image of the 'London court one is never sure of finding' sends the poem into unexpected, mysterious territory. What is 'that ill-favoured, curious house', with its sprawling papers and bitten-up letters? Perhaps it's an image of Larkin's imagination, or his life – but then the blaze of colour with that case of butterflies! That is quite a way to end an autumn poem...

And tomorrow I'm off to Worthing again for a few days, where the autumn wind will be fierce. I should be posting again in a few days.