How distant, the departure of young men <br />Down valleys, or watching <br />The green shore past the salt-white cordage <br />Rising and falling. <br /> <br />Cattlemen, or carpenters, or keen <br />Simply to get away <br />From married villages before morning, <br />Melodeons play <br /> <br />On tiny decks past fraying cliffs of water <br />Or late at night <br />Sweet under the differently-swung stars, <br />When the chance sight <br /> <br />Of a girl doing her laundry in the steerage <br />Ramifies endlessly. <br />This is being young, <br />Assumption of the startled century <br /> <br />Like new store clothes, <br />The huge decisions printed out by feet <br />Inventing where they tread, <br />The random windows conjuring a street.<br /><br />Philip Larkin<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/how-distant-2/
