The Spirit Wooed

by Philip Larkin

Once I believed in you,

And then you came,

Unquestionably new, as fame

Had said you were. But that was long ago.

You launched no argument,

Yet I obeyed,

Straightaway, the instrument you played

Distant Down sidestreets, keeping different time,

And never questioned what

You fascinate

In me; if good or not, the state

You pressed towards. There was no need to know.

Grave pristine absolutes

Walked in my mind:

So that I was not mute, or blind,

As years before or since. My only crime

Was holding you too dear.

Was that the cause

You daily came less near—a pause

Longer than life, if you decide it so?