The Trees - Philip Larkin (1974)

The Trees

The trees are coming into leaf

Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.

Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too.
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.

Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.

We two boys together clinging

        WE two boys together clinging, 

        One the other never leaving, 

        Up and down the roads going, North and South excursions making, 

        Power enjoying, elbows stretching, fingers clutching, 

        Arm'd and fearless, eating, drinking, sleeping, loving, 

        No law less than ourselves owning, sailing, soldiering, thieving, threatening, 

        Misers, menials, priests alarming, air breathing, water drinking, on the turf or the sea-beach dancing,

        Cities wrenching, ease scorning, statutes mocking, feebleness chasing, 

        Fulfilling our foray.

                                                                                                        Walt Whitman, 1855, Leaves of Grass.