The Whitsun Weddings

I, like many, find myself returning to this poem every spring. It depicts a narrator who, while enroute to London, watches several weddings from the window of his train. This poem captures the familiar surprise of springtime. It is easy to become totally enthralled by winter, struggling through the endless cold; then, suddenly, it is spring, and there are buds on the trees. While our heads were down, time has moved forward. The narrator of this poem, too, seems surprised to find himself in the midst of a new season, here announced by the cyclical rhythm of strangers’ lives:

We passed them, grinning and pomaded, girls   
In parodies of fashion, heels and veils,   
All posed irresolutely, watching us go,

As if out on the end of an event
    Waving goodbye
To something that survived it. Struck, I leant   
More promptly out next time, more curiously,   
And saw it all again in different terms:  

As someone who frequently finds themself surrounded by strangers on buses and trains, Larkin plays a familiar game: look at these unknown people and try to guess at their lives. Larkin allows himself to be drawn into these scenes and moved by them. In this poem, and throughout this collection, his characters rise above simple tropes that spur them, as if he is challenging us to rise above our own innate cynicism. Larkin’s delicate portrait of these couples and their families is bittersweet, filled with the sense of his own wonder and disconnect. He is just a passenger, joined to these strangers only by a moment of his attention. And yet he is still affected by this small glimpse into their world:

…it was nearly done, this frail   
Travelling coincidence; and what it held   
Stood ready to be loosed with all the power   
That being changed can give.