Man Reading (Nicola d’Inverno), by John Singer Sargent
Philip Larkin
A stationary sense... as, I suppose,
I shall have, till my single body grows
         Inaccurate, tired;
Then I shall start to feel the backward pull
Take over, sickening and masterful—
         Some say, desired.
 
And this must be the prime of life... I blink,
As if at pain; for it is pain, to think
         This pantomime
Of compensating act and counter—act,
Defeat and counterfeit, makes up, in fact,
         My ablest time.
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