News at Eleven: [Philip Larkin's] picture of religion

as "That vast moth-eaten musical brocade/ Created to pretend we never die" is so good--as music--that one remembers it almost every time one enters a church. But the rest of the verse, in which he itemises just what it is that we dread about extinction, for me--at any rate--spoils it. It lacks the bleakness, and brilliance, as the full-throttle death fears end and day begins.

from Telegraph: Philip Larkin's almost perfect poem

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