At Grass Philip Larkin
Summary
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The poet is observing two race horses in retirement and imagining their racing careers. It is interesting that Larkin doesn’t mention the word ‘horse’, though he mentions so many aspects of horses that he doesn’t need to use the term ‘horse’. In the first stanza, he looks at two horses at twilight. His eye finds it hard to see the outline of the horses in the twilight. It is when the wind blows at the tail of each horse that he sees their outline. One of the horses is moving while the second horse stands there motionless. Then the moving horse stands still like the other and there is no way of distinguishing them in the twilight. The words ‘cold shade’ and ‘distressed’ create a disturbing atmosphere. These words may imply the death that soon awaits the old, retired horses. In the second stanza Larkin introduces a flashback. The poet guesses that these old looking horses were famous fifteen years ago as racehorses. He imagines that they won various Cups. Memories of these afternoons are ‘faint’ or faded now. He guesses that whatever races they won, the total winning distances achieved by the two racehorses in various races was less than twenty-four horse-lengths. These winning distances turned the horses into celebrities of the racetrack, ‘fabled them’. Their racing names that were carved on various cups and slogans/brands are now faded. In the third stanza the flashback continues. Larkin’s imagination pictures the colorful silk costumes of the riders, the number boards and other tings: all making up the charming scene inside the racetrack. The scene outside the track, especially on a hot day is a bit annoying. He imagines the car parks full of cars arranged in military order on littered grass on hot days. It is an unpleasant picture. His mind jumps inside to the climax of races as those with winning bets cry-out in excitement. Larkin imagines this cry being carried from the racetrack to city streets where evening newspaper sellers would cry out an exciting win by one of the horses in order to sell copies to the paper. In the fourth stanza Larkin wonders if the horses find memories of these events as disturbing as flies around their heads? The horses shake their heads, either to answer him that they don’t have bad memories or to shake off these kinds of memories. The reader has to decide which. Evening comes and fills the shadows, making it even harder to see the horses. The scenes of their racing winnings have vanished from the lives of the horses. Each part of their lives has vanished in time, apart from these grassland where they now live. It is interesting that Larkin refers to the meadows/grassland as ‘unmolesting’. This word suggests that for Larkin the horses’ glory days while winning races was a form of abuse. He seems to criticize the use of horses in this way. The horses are now private, even though their racing names still remain in the mind of the public due to racing records and perhaps due to races named in their honour.

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In the fifth stanza Larkin announces that the horses are comfortable with their anonymity / their privacy. He imagines they are happy to have left their days as trained horses behind them. Now, he imagines their expression of joy as they are free. There are no people watching them, demanding that they win. There are no bets being placed on them. Larkin likes the fact that the horses are stress-free. The only humans they have to relate to are the people who take care of them and the rider . The horses are at ease /comfort on the grass. The earlier reference to ‘cold shade’ is a classical image of coming death. Therefore the final image of the caring team may be a kindly sign of the death that awaits the horses.

Style
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Form /Structure It is written in five stanzas of six lines each. Stanzas one and five deal with the present, stanzas two, three and four with the past. Language The words are mainly in simple sentences, although Larkin asks one important question in the fourth stanza and allows the horses to answer it through a gesture/sign . Some sentences contain lists of descriptions, as in the first stanza. Larkin sometimes leaves out a word like ‘the’ in the third line before ‘wind’. This slightly challenges the reader, but it is for the sake of achieving a rhythm. The listing in the third stanza is an effective method of conveying a lot of information while building up the excitement. Imagery The imagery focuses on two horses in a grassland at twilight and the typical scene of their racing careers. Metaphor Larkin compares the organised layout of cars in a car park to military organizations, as if the horses were controlled in a military situation. Simile Larkin wonders if memories of their racing days bother/annoy the horses like the way flies over their ears and annoy them. Tone The tone of the first stanza is neutral and un-dramatic: ‘the eye can hardly pick them out’. The point of view is real, as the last two lines of the first stanza show. The tone remains matter of fact in the second stanza but becomes excited from the start of the third stanza: ‘the long cry hanging unhushed’. In the final stanza the tone is happy as the poet cheers in the ‘joy’ of the horses, freed from the betting public. Overall the tone is sad as it’s like a memorial to these horses.