In frames as large as rooms that face all ways <br />And block the ends of streets with giant loaves, <br />Screen graves with custard, cover slums with praise <br />Of motor-oil and cuts of salmon, shine <br />Perpetually these sharply-pictured groves <br />Of how life should be. High above the gutter <br />A silver knife sinks into golden butter, <br />A glass of milk stands in a meadow, and <br />Well-balanced families, in fine <br />Midsummer weather, owe their smiles, their cars, <br />Even their youth, to that small cube each hand <br />Stretches towards. These, and the deep armchairs <br />Aligned to cups at bedtime, radiant bars <br />(Gas or electric), quarter-profile cats <br />By slippers on warm mats, <br />Reflect none of the rained-on streets and squares <br /> <br />They dominate outdoors. Rather, they rise <br />Serenely to proclaim pure crust, pure foam, <br />Pure coldness to our live imperfect eyes <br />That stare beyond this world, where nothing's made <br />As new or washed quite clean, seeking the home <br />All such inhabit. There, dark raftered pubs <br />Are filled with white-clothed ones from tennis-clubs, <br />And the boy puking his heart out in the Gents <br />Just missed them, as the pensioner paid <br />A halfpenny more for Granny Graveclothes' Tea <br />To taste old age, and dying smokers sense <br />Walking towards them through some dappled park <br />As if on water that unfocused she <br />No match lit up, nor drag ever brought near, <br />Who now stands newly clear, <br />Smiling, and recognising, and going dark.<br /><br />Philip Larkin<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/essential-beauty/
