Poetry - How to Write the Essay - Focus on Larkin - Aoife's Notes

Bone-littered ground. And up <strong>the</strong> paths
The endless altered people came,
Washing at <strong>the</strong>ir identity.
Now, helpless in <strong>the</strong> hollow of
An unarmorial age, a trough
Of smoke in slow suspended skeins
Above <strong>the</strong>ir scrap of his<strong>to</strong>ry,
Only an attitude remains:
Time has transfigures <strong>the</strong>m in<strong>to</strong>
Untruth. The s<strong>to</strong>ne fidelity
They hardly meant has come <strong>to</strong> be
Their final blazon, and <strong>to</strong> prove
Our almost-instinct almost true:
What will survive of us is love.
Published in 1956 as a part of The Whitson Weddings. The <strong>to</strong>mb is of Richard FitzAlan, 10th
Earl of Arundel (ca. 1306-1376) and Eleanor of Lancaster (1318-1372), his second wife. The
<strong>to</strong>mb is located in Chichester Ca<strong>the</strong>dral after having been moved from Lewis Priory. In his
will FitzAlan requested <strong>to</strong> be buried near his wife and that his <strong>to</strong>mb be no higher than hers.
Aoife O’Driscoll 2011 Page 23