High Windows

Although it was written in 1967, Philip Larkin (1922-1985) published “High Windows” in his collection of the same name in 1974. High Windows was Larkin’s fourth and final book of poetry, and the titular poem demonstrates the work of a poet at the height of literary powers. Although Larkin is often associated with the British poetry movement simply called "The Movement," he is a singular author who preferred to write in solitude and without fanfare. “High Windows” exemplifies Larkin’s clarity, his sardonic and pessimistic tone, and his use of traditional verse forms. The poem responds to the changing cultural views toward sex in the revolutionary 1960s, using these events to make broader reflections on the nature of societal change.

Poet Biography

Philip Larkin was born in 1922 to middle class, English parents. As a child, Larkin was introduced to the works of Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, James Joyce, and Paul Dunbar Laurence. His parents supported his interests by encouraging his early passion for jazz music. After a somewhat academically challenged childhood, Larkin earned First-Class Honors in English from St. John’s College, Oxford in 1943. After graduating, Larkin worked as a librarian—a profession to which he would stick his entire life. While he honed his craft from years of writing poetry and fiction in his teenage years, Larkin only began to publish literature after he began working as a librarian. His first collection, The North Ship, was published in 1945. Larkin continued to write and publish all his life, completing novels along with his poetry.

Larkin’s literature earned widespread acclaim. Larkin was offered both an “OBE” (an induction into a British chivalrous order) and the position of British Poet Laureate. Preferring to live and write in solitude, Larkin turned down both honors. When he died of cancer in 1985, Larkin left behind a markedly small oeuvre—only four small books of poetry and a few novels. Despite this, Larkin’s distinctive style, wit, and formal precision cemented his position in the literary cannon.

Poem Text

Larkin, Philip. “High Windows.” 1974. Poetry Foundation.

Summary

Philip Larkin opens “High Windows” with a jarringly casual first stanza. The speaker, presumably Larkin himself, sees “a couple of kids” (Line 1). The first stanza documents this observation and initiates the poem’s shift into reflection. Upon seeing the young couple, the speaker “guess[es]” they are sleeping together using contraceptives. In contrast to the more sexually conservative society in which Larkin was raised, the speaker “know[s]” this world of the current youth “is paradise” (Line 4).

After the long stanza-break gap in the middle of his sentence, the following stanza further describes this paradise as one “Everyone old has dreamed of all their lives” (Line 5). At this point in the stanza, the poem introduces its first image: a simile comparing the “Bonds and gestures pushed” aside (Line 6) to the abandonment of outdated farming equipment (presumably in favor of more current agricultural technologies). The poem directly moves into its next image by describing the lives of the young as “everyone […] going down the long slide” (Line 8).

Once again, Larkin straddles a sentence between two stanzas, telling the reader that the “long slide[’s]” (Line 8) destination is “To happiness, endlessly” (Line 9). After this sentence, the poem’s third stanza returns attention to the speaker, who wonders if “Anyone looked at [him]” (Line 10) when he was young similar to how he is now observing the couple. Because the reader can safely assume the “couple of kids” (Line 1) are in their teens or 20s, and the speaker wonders if he was observed similarly “forty years back” (Line 10), the speaker identifies as being in his 50s or 60s.

Instead of enjoying new sexual freedoms, the speaker’s youth seems to have been defined by cultural freedoms from religion. His imagined elder envies that there is “No God any more” (Line 12) for young Larkin. This absence of God also means no more worrying “About hell and that” (Line 13), and even frees people from “having to hide / What [they] think of the priest” (Lines 13-14). Just as the speaker imagines the current generation “going down the long slide / To happiness” (Lines 8-9), so his imagined elder thinks the speaker’s generation “will all go down the long slide / like free bloody birds” (Lines 15-16).

After this reflection on the speaker’s own thoughts, the poem shifts “immediately” (Line 16) into a different tone for its concluding stanza. Instead of the vernacular dialogue or simple similes, the final stanza develops a self-consciously beautiful and complex poetic image imbued with ambiguity. “Rather than words,” the speakers thoughts produce the image of “high windows” (Line 17). The final three lines of the poem develop this single image, describing the “sun-comprehending glass” of the windows (Line 18) and the “deep blue air” beyond them (Line 19). Because the sky is “beyond” (Line 19) the high windows, the speaker is visualizing them from inside a building—perhaps a church. What lies outside the high windows “shows / Nothing, and is nowhere” (Lines 19-20).

The poem’s final word, although it modifies the “Nothing” (Line 20) of the “deep blue air” (Line 19) refers back to the “young going down the long slide / […] endlessly” (Lines 8-9). The reference to infinity is ambiguous. The endlessness of life and death and change could subvert the supposed happiness and freedom the speaker observes in the new generation, implying futility. However, the endless “Nothing, […] nowhere” (Line 20) could also suggest a serene peace. Regardless, the introduction of complex ambiguity in an image is a departure from the way the poem functions up until its ending. In this way, Larkin infuses the poem’s tone with an intricacy that shifts depending on how the reader interprets its final lines.