Larkin's 'Money' (1973) ends:
I listen to money singing. It's like looking downBut wait a minute Phil: you don't actually mean 'it is intensely sad'. You mean 'I am intensely sad.' That's really not the same thing, Phil. That's really not that same thing at all. The street, the church, the whole provincial town is doing just fine, thank you, and has no responsibility for you mournfulness, standing at the French windows there. Ah, but that's you and your poetry in a nutshell, Phil, isn't it?
From long French windows at a provincial town,
The slums, the canal, the churches ornate and mad
In the evening sun. It is intensely sad.
Is "money singing" full of bonhomie and lifsglaede, though?
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