When I see a couple of kids <br />And guess he's fucking her and she's <br />Taking pills or wearing a diaphragm, <br />I know this is paradise <br /> <br />Everyone old has dreamed of all their lives-- <br />Bonds and gestures pushed to one side <br />Like an outdated combine harvester, <br />And everyone young going down the long slide <br /> <br />To happiness, endlessly. I wonder if <br />Anyone looked at me, forty years back, <br />And thought, That'll be the life; <br />No God any more, or sweating in the dark <br /> <br />About hell and that, or having to hide <br />What you think of the priest. He <br />And his lot will all go down the long slide <br />Like free bloody birds. And immediately <br /> <br />Rather than words comes the thought of high windows: <br />The sun-comprehending glass, <br />And beyond it, the deep blue air, that shows <br />Nothing, and is nowhere, and is endless.<br /><br />Philip Larkin<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/high-windows/
