My favourite poet is Philip Larkin, and, as luck would have it, one of his collections, 'High Windows' is one of our set texts in Eng Lit. <!--emo&:)-->

<!--endemo--> I know lots of people think he's a grumpy old lecherous moany git, but lots of his poems are absolutely beautiful and incredibly poignant - this is one of my favourites:
The Explosion On the day of the explosion
Shadows pointed towards the pithead:
In the sun the slagheap slept.
Down the lane came men in pitboots
Coughing oath-edged talk and pipe-smoke,
Shouldering off the freshened silence.
One chased after rabbits; lost them;
Came back with a nest of lark's eggs;
Showed them; lodged them in the grasses.
So they passed in beards and moleskins,
Fathers, brothers, nicknames, laughter,
Through the tall gates standing open.
At noon there came a tremor; cows
Stopped chewing for a second; sun
Scarfed as in a heat-haze dimmed.
The dead go on before us, they
Are sitting in God's house in comfort,
We shall see them face to face--Plain as lettering in the chapels
It was said, and for a second
Wives saw men of the explosion
Larger than in life they managed--
Gold as on a coin, or walking
Somehow from the sun towards them,
One showing the eggs unbroken.
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I decree today that life is simply taking and not giving
England is mine, it owes me a living
But ask me why and I'll spit in your eye
Oh, ask me why and I'll spit in your eye
But we cannot cling to the old dreams anymore
No, we cannot cling to those dreams
Does the body rule the mind or does the mind rule the body?
I dunno...
Under the iron bridge we kissed
And although I ended up with sore lips
It just wasn't like the old days anymore
No, it wasn't like those days
Am I still ill...?