To collect crop. Contraction of "reaped."

A small stream. Usually with this form, referring to the hills covered in chalk in southern England.

A storage barn for grain that has already been separated from the plant.

In Middle-English, verbs in their past tense forms sometimes lose the vowel in the ending. Here, "mossed" becomes "moss'd."

In Middle-English, verbs in their past tense forms sometimes lose the vowel in the ending. Here, "brimmed" becomes "brimm'd."

The contraction of "over" is used in order to comply with poetic meter.

The edge of a roof covered in straw.

A small stream. Usually with this form, referring to the hills covered in chalk in southern England.

A storage barn for grain that has already been separated from the plant.

In Middle-English, verbs in their past tense forms sometimes lose the vowel in the ending. Here, "mossed" becomes "moss'd."

In Middle-English, verbs in their past tense forms sometimes lose the vowel in the ending. Here, "brimmed" becomes "brimm'd."

The contraction of "over" is used in order to comply with poetic meter.

The edge of a roof covered in straw.

To collect crop. Contraction of "reaped."

A storage barn for grain that has already been separated from the plant.

In Middle-English, verbs in their past tense forms sometimes lose the vowel in the ending. Here, "mossed" becomes "moss'd."

In Middle-English, verbs in their past tense forms sometimes lose the vowel in the ending. Here, "brimmed" becomes "brimm'd."

The contraction of "over" is used in order to comply with poetic meter.

The edge of a roof covered in straw.

personification of light

Larkin now makes an appeal for religion. After calling religion and afterlife, "trick" and "specious," he rationalizes the practice of it. He almost gives back permission/support for believing in afterlives and other certainties, because the alternative is living in miserable fear. He knows that death poses the impossible question of "if meaningless death is the only certain, why live?" so he now justifies and validates religious rationalization. Also, he does this at the end of the poem, when the day is about to start, because he must justify it for himself too, in order to live and forget about it for the 9am-5pm. Again showing the cyclical nature of fearing death.

Ignorance is bliss.

In this stanza, Larkin expresses how the thought/fear of death haunts people by cyclically stalking them quietly then striking big. Not only is this expressed literally, but through the tone and diction. For example, he goes from calm descriptions like, "small unfocused blur," to bold descriptions like, "furnace fear." Mirroring the structure of a day, 9am-5pm: ignoring the thought of death to being consumed by it at night, this stanza is a microcosm for the haunting and cyclical fear of death.

This statement is italicized to denote that Larkin does not share this point of view on fear. The format change highlights that these are not Larkin's words, they are those of the "specious."

Larkin notes what specifically we fear about death and in doing so highlights why we value life so much, "love or link." He proposes that the experience of life, while haunted by the thought of losing it, is exalted by the living of it.

Again undermining religions threat of afterlife, Larkin argues that since there is no afterlife, there is no consequence to how one lives their life. Importantly, Larkin doesn't denote this as bad or good, this is an appeal to be free and live how you want because we are all going to the same place in the end.

Larkin reminds us that death is the only certainty in life. Phrasing oblivion as a place we "travel to" and be "always" proposes that death is a relief to life.

An "aubade" is a morning love poem, about lovers parting at dawn. Despite this, Larkin writes a depressing and hopeless poem.