At grass

By Philip Larkin (1922 - 1985)

The eye can hardly pick them out 
From the cold shade they shelter in, 
Till wind distresses tail and main; 
Then one crops grass, and moves about 
- The other seeming to look on - 
And stands anonymous again 

Yet fifteen years ago, perhaps 
Two dozen distances surficed 
To fable them : faint afternoons 
Of Cups and Stakes and Handicaps, 
Whereby their names were artificed 
To inlay faded, classic Junes - 

Silks at the start : against the sky 
Numbers and parasols : outside, 
Squadrons of empty cars, and heat, 
And littered grass : then the long cry 
Hanging unhushed till it subside 
To stop-press columns on the street. 

Do memories plague their ears like flies? 
They shake their heads. Dusk brims the shadows. 
Summer by summer all stole away, 
The starting-gates, the crowd and cries - 
All but the unmolesting meadows. 
Almanacked, their names live; they 

Have slipped their names, and stand at ease, 
Or gallop for what must be joy, 
And not a fieldglass sees them home, 
Or curious stop-watch prophesies: 
Only the grooms, and the grooms boy, 
With bridles in the evening come.