Philip Larkin. To The Sea.

To step over the low wall that dividesRoad from concrete walk above the shoreBrings sharply back something known long before –The miniature gaiety of seasides.Everything crowds under the low horizon:Steep beach, blue water, towels, red bathing caps,The small hushed waves’ repeated fresh collapseUp the warm yellow sand, and further offA white steamer stuck in the afternoon –Still going on, all of it, still going on!To lie, eat, sleep in hearing of the surf(Ears to transistors, that sound tame enoughUnder the sky), or gently up and downLead the uncertain children, frilled in whiteAnd grasping at enormous air, or wheelThe rigid old along for them to feelA final summer, plainly still occursAs half an annual pleasure, half a rite,As when, happy at being on my own,I searched the sand for Famous Cricketers,Or, farther back, my parents, listenersTo the same seaside quack, first became known.Strange to it now, I watch the cloudless scene:The same clear water over smoothed pebblesThe distant bathers’ weak protesting treblesDown at its edge, and then the cheap cigars,The chocolate-papers, tea-leaves, and, betweenThe rocks, the rusting soup-tins, till the firstFew families start the trek back to the cars.The white steamer has gone. Like breathed-on glassThe sunlight has turned milky. If the worstOf flawless weather is our falling short,It may be that through habit these do best,Coming to water clumsily undressedYearly; teaching their children by a sortOf clowning; helping the old, too, as they ought.