Rajamouly Katta’s poem "Time": An Interpretation By D.C Chambial

Rajamouly Katta’s poem "Time": An Interpretation

D.C. Chambial’s Critique

Time has been defined as “the definite continued progress of existence and events that occur in apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, to the future. Time is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to compare the duration of events or the intervals between them, and to quantify rates of change of quantities in material reality or in conscious experience. Time is often referred to as a fourth dimension, along with three spatial dimensions” (Wikipedia). Einstein, the twentieth century renowned scientist and mathematician put forth his theory of spatial relativity to explain “that time slows down or speeds up depending on how fast you move relative to something else. Approaching the speed of light, a person inside a spaceship would age much slower than his twin at home. Also, under Einstein’s theory of general relativity, gravity can be time” (Wikipedia).

While throughout the ancient literature, there is no hint to the origin of time, the Gita discloses that Time also originated from the Supreme: He is time; and Time is Him. In the tenth chapter of the Gita that is about the opulence of the Absolute, Lord Krishna tells Arjuna that he is the source of all:

अहं सर्वस्य प्रभवो मत्त: सर्वं प्रवर्तते ।

इति मत्वा भजन्ते मां बुधा भावसमन्विता: ॥ 10.8 ॥

 

[I am the source of all spiritual and material worlds. Everything emanates from me. The wise who perfectly know this, engage in My devotional service and worship Me with their hearts. - Trans. Swami Prabhupada]

and then in the same chapter later, He tells us that He is Time:

 

अक्षराणामकारोऽस्मि द्वन्द्व: सामासिकस्य च ।

अहमेवाक्षय: कालो धाताहं विश्वतोमुख: ॥ 10.33 ॥

 

[Of letters I am the letter A, and among compound words I am the dual compound. I am also inexhaustible time, and of creators I am Brahma. - Trans. Swami Prabhupada]

In the 20th century, the scientists propound the origin of time thus: “Everything, space, time and matter, came into existence with a ‘Big Bang’, around 13.7 billion years ago” (May 26). It is the scientists who have fixed the origin of Time with ‘Big Bang’.

Dr. K. Rajamouly is professor of English by vocation and poet, short story writer, essayist, critic and translator by avocation. He has authored 23 books and 95 articles, stories and poems published in national and international journals. he has worked for his PhD on the concept of Time in the poetry of British poet, Philip Larkin. So, time seems to have percolated into his conscious and oozes out in his literary creations.

Dr. Rajamouly, a scholar of Philip Larkin’s poetry becomes obsessed with Larkin’s concept of Time. Professor Chelliah, of Madurai Kamraj University, who has also studied Larkin’s poetry, contends: “A close analysis of Larkin’s poems would reveal the fact that most of his poems lay focus on the deceiving and destroying capabilities of time” (2). For him, time, in Larkin’s poetry, remains deceptive and destructive.

Professor Rajamouly writes a poem, entitled Time, which throws light on the varied aspects of Time. The poem, for the benefit of readers, is given below:

TIME

 

How you stepped into this world is strange

Your endless flow is bound up in mystery;

Your galloping speed for incessant change

Left imprints in every living history.

 

The milestones mark your age on the milky way

It’s race on wheels at a high pace

A wayfarer’s journey without stay,

Yet no trace of weariness on your face

 

You manifest eroding powers in all circles

Even pliant limbs and sharp mind grow decrepit

The petal-soft countenance carves wrinkles.

The sculpture in a quake breaks into many a bit.

 

 

You resemble a river in its ceaseless glide

Your resolve is like the planets’ orbit

You look like an eternal traveller in his ride,

And travel like the flash of light brightly lit.

 

Five senses, in strict governance of the mind,

Fail to unravel and charter your powerful role

Mysterious are your ways to humankind.

Everything manifests under your iron control. (122)

After having read the poem, let’s try to interpret it. The present poem, “Time”, is also a manifestation of his penchant for the theme of time not only in his critical writings but also in his creative works. The poem begins with an apostrophe to Time personified:

How you stepped into this world is strange

Your endless flow is bound up in mystery;

Your galloping speed for incessant change

Left imprints in every living history. (lines 1-4)

The protagonist finds it very queer about the appearance of Time in this world. The very first word, “how”, in the first line, hits at the way, manner/mode, or means of its appearance. The phrase “stepped into” makes Time appear as a living being, most probably, a human being. Time does not stop anywhere; so, the protagonist mulls that its continuous flow is full of vagueness, as none knows an answer to it. While the noun “flow” in the second line brings to memory the flow of river, the verb, “bound up”, makes it intrinsically connected with obscurity - a union of the concrete and the abstract, because none is able to decipher the insurability of its flow. Time is never constant or static; it is ever moving ahead: what it is now, it moves ahead in the next movement. There is also an adage associated with Time: ‘time and tide wait for none’. So, its speed is closely associated with change. Hence, he finds that Time’s ever moving and changing attribute has left indelible impression on the world’s “everything living history”. Several civilizations have appeared and disappeared in this world and each and every civilization has borne the burnt of time. The poet tells here, in this stanza, about Time’s appearance from vacuity, its mysterious and non-terminating flow or movement: it is ever moving for change, because change is the law of Nature; as it is endemic in its nature and that accounts for the change in the apparent world. Tennyson also writes about the necessity of this change in his poem Morte d’ Arthur’.

The old order changeth, yielding place to new,

And God fulfils Himself in many ways,

Lest one good custom should corrupt the world. (lines 291-93)

The “old order” does not signify only the established customary state of society, but also the flow of time - thus “order” and “time” are relative to each other.

The second stanza is about Time’s age, its ever-moving attribute, its speed without any hits of any exhaustion. The poet portrays it as a traveller ever fresh and full of energy:

The milestones mark your age on the milkyway

It’s race on wheels at a high pace

A wayfarer’s journey without stay,

Yet no trace of weariness on your face. (lines 5-8)

A living being grows older day by day and ultimately reaches the end point - death. Time also grows in age; however, it is marked “on the milky way” and never reaches its death. While all other creations, animate or inanimate, have their life span and are aged, Time is as old as the milky way. It does not walk, (the word, “stepped” in the first line) instead, it races, moves very fast, “on wheels” at a high speed. The poet brings in the vehicle of transport in his imagination - the contemporary technology, which is also a change from the wooden wheel to the present metallic wheel. With this change in the material of the wheel the speed has also increased. Now the speed may be greater than the speed of escape velocity with which the space scaling spaceships move away from the gravitation pull of Earth. Then, it is likened to a traveller’s journey; rather, the Time becomes a traveller, who keeps on moving and never halts for rest or to refresh itself. How bizarre it is that despite its continuous journey, it doesn’t show any sign of fatigue, an attribute of a non-living thing. While all living beings feel tired after a long journey, but time has “no trace of weariness” on its face or its limbs do not get lethargic contrary to human beings. Time knows no sloth and lethargy.

The third stanza shows Time’s destructive impact on all things, living or non0living of this world.

You manifest eroding powers in all circles

Even pliant limbs and sharp mind grow decrepit

The petal-soft countenance carves wrinkles.

The sculpture in a quake breaks into many a bit. (lines 9-12)

As Time passes or moves ahead minute-by-minute, day-by-day, year-by-year, its acerbic/destructive effect - “eroding powers” - is visible on all, “in all circles”. The supple body parts become inflexible; the sharpest minds lose their sharpness with the passage of time and, eventually, become infirm and useless. It also manifests its impact on human faces - beautiful or ugly, alike. Beautiful faces lose their beauty and become ugly as wrinkles appear as Time advances. Youth changes into old age. The artifacts carved out of stone and hard materials, supposed to be long-lasting, cannot bear the onslaught of Time and during an earthquake are broken into several pieces. Thus, Time spares none from its destructive effect. It is friend to none. All fall prey to it.

The fourth stanza describes Time’s varied attributes, e.g. movement, determination, appearance, and speed:

You resemble a river in its ceaseless glide

Your resolve is like the planets’ orbit

You look like an eternal traveller in his ride,

And travel like the flash of light brightly lit. (lines 13-16)

The poet writes, as if talking to Time standing before him as second person that is similar to a river in its non-ending and smooth movement/flow. Its trait of being resolute is as specific and determined as “planets’ orbit” - the fixed path of the movement of heavenly bodies. If they lose their resoluteness, even for a fraction of a second, then the cosmos may collapse. Everything is pre-determined in the kinesis of time. Its unending journey makes it look “like an eternal traveller” riding his horse or vehicle traveling with the speed of light. Time is never lazy; so, it moves or travels with high speed: “like the flash of light brightly lit”.

The fifth stanza, the concluding one, tells that even the most intelligent ones are unable to unveil Time’s enigma:

Five senses, in strict governance of the mind

Fail to unravel and charter your powerful role

Mysterious are your ways to humankind.

Everything manifests under your iron control. (lines 17-20)

The poet arrives at the conclusion that a human being, who has five senses of sight, touch, taste, smell, and hearing at his behest and under the full control of his mind, finds himself helpless to decode and show Time’s “powerful role” in this world. Time’s modus operandi or ways of operation in this world still remain unexplained and baffling to humanity. Whatever happens does not fall beyond the control of time. Every change whether micro or macro, is the outcome of Time’s strict rule, or its “iron control”.

In the views of Mundra and Agarwal, “A useful analysis is almost always one which deals with a good poem (not necessarily a great one) and shows exactly why and how it is to be admired” (149). They also lay down that the reader should be free from any prejudices and “presume to catch something of the poet’s vision”(149). My interpretations of poems always tend to catch this “something of the poet’s vision”.

The Development of Theme

The Poem is about the mystery of Time. The poet has developed them in five stanzas using regular rhyme scheme of ABAB in iambic pentameters with little variations. The poem begins with the mysterious nature of Time that moves non-stop and is ever changing. The thought, in the second stanza, develops making Time an eternal traveller without showing any signs of tiredness. In the third stanza, the poet makes Time all powerful that has destructive effect on everything of this material world: beauty wanes, softness becomes rugged, and works of art get destroyed. Fourth stanza reveals Time as a river moving noiselessly with a firm resolve and travels very fast. The poet, in the fifth stanza, confirms Time’s weirdness that even the most intelligent men are not able to know its position and function. Human beings are only subject to Time’s stern control.

* * *

Syntax

I’ll try to study the poem’s syntax in the first stanza only and leaving the other stanzas for the readers to study themselves, because a direct involvement in the process gives more enjoyment.

How you stepped into this world is strange

Your endless flow is bound up in mystery;

Your galloping speed for incessant change

Left imprints in every living history

It appears from the given syntax that the stanza has one sentence only. A simple sentence, in English, must have a subject, a verb, and an object. The first line: “How you stepped into this world is strange”, has subject - “How you stepped into this world”, verb - “is”, and subject complement - “strange”. Though generally the subject and object in a sentence are nouns or noun phrases; but here the subject is the manner and object is an adjective. It is the deviation that the poet has wrought in his technique/style. It should have followed by a period, thereby, making it a complete sentence. Similarly, the second line: “Your endless flow” as subject, “is” as verb, and “bound up in mystery” as the object. The third and fourth lines of this stanza make one sentence: “Your galloping speed for incessant change / [has] Left imprints in every living history.” Here “Your galloping speed for incessant change” is subject, [has] left, a verb, and “imprints in every living history”, an object that is followed by period. However, if we analyse the subjects and objects shown in the lines/sentences of this stanza, they are subject to further scrutiny. For example, the subject in the first line: “How you stepped into this world” can be broken into six units (also called parsing): 1) “how” expressing manner, 2) “you” second person singular pronoun, 3) stepped verb in past tense, 4) “into” preposition denoting movement, 5) “this”, though demonstrative pronoun, becomes/behaves as an adjective when used with a noun, 6) “world”.

It can be rewritten as:

“How you stepped into this world” [despite being a noun phrase, it is also a complete sentence]

1. How - a manner word

2. You - pronoun [second person singular]

3. stepped - verb [past tense]

4. into - preposition [shows the relationship of word/s preceding and following it]

5. this - adjective [qualifying world], and

6. world - noun

and the subject complement, “strange”, after the verb “is” is an adjective and leaves the subject complement (here manner) understood.

If the poet had used “How strange you stepped into this world”, that would have changed the meaning of the sentence contrary to the poet’s intention. There are three ways of writing this sentence:

1. How you stepped into this world is strange. [as given in the poem]

2. How strange, you stepped into this world! [It expresses woder at the stepping in of the subject “you”.]

or

3. You stepped into this world, how strange! [It expresses queerness of the subject coming into this world.]

However, the poet prefers the first one to match his argument. A linguist can similarly analyse the syntax structure of the entire poem to understand the poem in a better way and why the poet has used this kind of syntax.

Alliteration

The poet has used assonance, similar vowel sounds in the fourth line of the first stanza e.g. /i/ sound in “Left imprints in every living history” at three different places of the word/s: beginning, middle and end. The example of consonance, recurring sound of a consonant, e.g. mark the nasal /m/ sound in the first line of the second stanza, “The milestones mark your age on the milky way”; and /r/ sound in the second line, “Fail to unravel and charter your powerful role”, of the fifth stanza. A careful reader can still discern some more examples of it in the poem. These, assonance and consonance, are the examples of alliteration, though not strictly used in the beginning of a word or line.

Imagery

The poet has used three phrases in the first stanza: “stepped into” in the first line, “endless flow” in the second line and “galloping speed” in the third. The first phrase is an image of a person walking steadily and gracefully; the second, “endless flow”, is drawn from Nature, of a river flowing continuously; and, the third, “galloping speed”, of the horse. His images in this stanza are all concrete.

In the second stanza the image becomes a blend of the concrete and the abstract: “milestones mark your age on the milky way”: “age on the milky way” is abstract - we can only guess/imagine and neither touch nor see; and “milestones mark” is concrete in the first line, and in the second line, “race on wheels”, is drawn from the domain of technology. In the fourth stanza, the image, “planets’ orbit” in the second line, is drawn from heavenly bodies, their imaginary but fixed route; and the next image, “flash of light brightly lit” in the fourth line, from the light to express its high speed, is also abstract.

Metaphor and Smile

Metaphor is a poetic device to make the thing/object look like the one with which it is compared. There is no apparent example of metaphor in the poem.

The poem starts, addressing time with reference to its invincible powers as it is not an abstract idea but a moving force. We are bound to concur with time’s powers that conquer all in its flow. “Stepped into” indicates speedy and steady movement and the preposition ‘into’ also expresses the idea of motion.

To capture the reader’s attention the poet uses smiles instead of metaphors.

Here his use of smiles is very apt, carrying immediate effect on the minds of readers. In some other contexts metaphors are more suitable. Through the use of a smile, a poet makes a comparison with some other relevant object and is introduced by the words - “like” and/or “as”, e.g. in the fourth stanza:

Your resolve is like the planets’ orbit

You look like an eternal traveller in his ride,

And travel like the flash of light brightly lit.

Here, the poet first compares Time’s resolve with the Planets’ path in the heavens; Time, in second line above, is compared with a traveller; and, in the third line, Time’s speed is compared to that of the light.

Symbols:

The poet uses symbols in a unique way for poetic effect: ‘The Milky way’ is a symbol to stand for the permanent sojourn of time and ‘Pliant limbs’ and ‘petal soft countenance’ are symbolic of the physical, temporal and ephemeral in nature. ‘Sharp mind’ is symbolic of mental and psychological nature. ‘Quake’ symbolizes the element of devastation, and disruption in time’s ceaseless fleet. ‘Living river’ is symbolic of time in incessant flow. ‘Five senses in the control of mind’ are symbolic of the five elements in the control of Time (as the five Pandavas, the warriors, are in the guidance of Lord Krishna). ‘Mind’ that is never static is symbolic of Time. Finally, ‘Iron control’ stands for the merciless and relentless nature of time to devastate and disrupt all in its flow.

To conclude, it is the mysterious nature of time that appeals to the reader in the very first reading and the poet has very aptly, cogently, and coherently developed this theme in the poem. The tone remains throughout one of astute surprise. A reader, through such an analysis of the poem, arrives at the core of “the poet’s vision”, tone, and meaning conveyed in the poem beside deriving pleasure from it that is the sole object of writing poetry. It also informs and enlightens the reader; and, thus, adds to his repertoire of knowledge.

Works Cited

Chelliah, Dr. S. “Philip Larkin’s Concept of Time as Projected in his Poetry: A Brief Analysis.” IJRAR - International Journal of Research and Analytical Reviews, vol. 3, issue 2, April - June 2016, pp. 1-5. https://ijrar.com/upload_issue/ijrar_issue_263.pdf

May, Brian, Patrick Moore, Chris Lintott. BANG! The Complete History of the Universe. Carlton Books Limited, 2006.

Mundra, S.C and S.C. Agarwal. Practical Criticism. Prakash Book Depot, 1971

Rajamouly, Dr. K. “Time.” Cherished Cherries: A Collection of Nine Anthologies. New Delhi: Author Press, 2016, 00. 122.

Tennyson, Alfred. “Morte d’ Arthur.” In Memoriam, Maud and other poems, edited with Introduction by John D. Jump. J. M. Dent & sons Ltd, 1974.

Wikipedia - A Brief History of Time (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time)

 

 Published: Poetcrit July - Dec 2026

The Flower-Music

Translation by

Dr. Rajamouly Katta

The Flower-Music

Prof. N. Gopi

All the night the dreams were disturbing

Like a poem that bloomed in the vase

Before coming onto paper

When I opened the door

Like the blown smile-storm

My tiny plant

You bloom a flower on your own

Made me fall into the tune of bliss,

Putting an end to my waiting for months

All turned a peasant tune

Where has the flower come from?

The sun released from mother-prison

To seek a shelter in the bower,

A winged bird, arisen to space, as if it has run back

Hearing mother’s call.

Is my attachment with the flower for today?

In benumbed mundane life

This flower is blood-shaken serene rhythm

It is the touch of the nine pulses

Of petal soft fingers.

You are the showing finger

Aimed at the hard heart

That does not respond on touching much

To overcome and cross

The man’s infinite tears for generations

The boat of colors in variety

Raises the fists in the bud

Blood-drop blooms as victories

The secrets from its lips

I decode and excavate safely

The memories stuck under the layers

Without being torn

I record its perennial silent explosions

From its hearts

How pure it is for me today!

We cannot prevent perfumes!

For whom is it possible to disrupt perfumes?

On the city densely trafficked roads with similar

The directing silent traffic light is the flower

The wonderful, beautiful light

Spurting wonderful, beautiful light from the base?

It is new peace fully spread in the eyes

Source: “Puspa Sangeetam” Kalanni Nidra Ponivvanu, pp17-18

Published: Poetcrit 39.2 (July - December 2026)

Anger of the Poor

 Anger of the Poor

Anger to cut a man into ten children

Anger to make the children fall as a hundred flowers

Anger to turn the flowers a thousand swords

It is the anger of the poor.

Before two volcanoes

It makes an earthquake stand,

The anger to turn a hundred stomachs a wing

The anger to combine a thousand wings into a drop,

The anger to display a song,

It is the anger of the poor.

It makes a song stand,

Before the hats of two policemen

Source: Sizare Velazo’s Spanish poem translated into Telugu by

Sir Sri in Mahaprasthanam-30

Published: Poetcrit 39.2 (July - December 2026)

Worthy Lessons Dr. C. Narayana Reddy

Translation

By

Dr Rajamouly Katta

Worthy Lessons

Dr. C. Narayana Reddy

If I move the pen

Letters do not flow

Unless we arrange thoughts

The cloud struggles a lot

There will not be showers.

If the raindrops have the will

For raining, they become showers.

Or they will be blown away by the wind.

Birds flying into the sky

Do not always move their wings.

Now and then they float

In the still manner.

That is their accustomed knack

The sea

With its mighty waves

That flow in their full rising

Shakes its hands with the shore

And goes back soon.

This is the principle followed by the sea

The air that is unseen

Offers life to others.

Broad-minded people never

Tell others openly about their help.

The tears seen are only tears.

But some glances

Tread the wrong paths.

The glance that sees straight

As an example, for righteousness.

If we see all objects of nature

Right from a piece of the cloud above

To a piece of soil on the ground

Are the lessons on selfless service

In the book of nature.

Source: Poem-16 ‘Pathaneeya Paathaalu’, from Vaakkuku Vayasu Leidu :

A Collection of Poems, Vareinya Creations, Hyderabad, P18-19

Published: Poetcrit 39.2 (July - December 2026):

Crazy Quest

 Crazy Quest

I flew like a bird

higher, still higher

thought, I had reached the highest.

To my dismay, found

there were numerous skies

higher, still higher...

I went deep into the earth

deeper, still deeper

thought, I had reached the centre.

To my dismay, found

there were numerous centres

deeper, still deeper...

I climbed the Mount

thought, I had reached the highest peak.

To my dismay, found

there were many more peaks

higher, still higher...

Is this crazy quest

in the nature of all beings

Or, the Creator’s mock-epic?

Published: Poetcrit 39.2 (July - December 2026)

Light and Dark

Light and Dark

A beam from nowhere

Darkness turned into light

Hope hopped so bright

His eyes drew them everywhere...

Stunned, dazed, dazzled

Enraptured by the vision

Their souls only half-open

Awakened, stirred, thrilled...

We shall choose light

Live our lives big and bright

Shed darkness, our traditional bane

Follow his aura, simple and plain...

Flashing, splashing, he sprang

Glitz and glitter, darkness he sang

Darkness our home, our robe

Darkness our goal in the globe...

Loud and lousy, he thundered

They howled at the skies, light shuddered

Demonic laughter utterly consumed

them into darkness, light bewildered...

Published: Poetcrit 39.2 (July - December 2026)

Poetic Heights and Depths

Poetic Heights and Depths

Poetry is mighty and majestic

Unequalled in magnitude

Unrivalled in multitude

For its imagination is fantastic

Poetry is vibrant in vision

Unlike science and mathematics

With limitations and boundaries

With nothing more, nothing less,

Like the apple flown high falls to the ground

Like (a+b)2 is a2 +b2 +2ab

To be noted in the spectrum of a line.

Poetry is a sojourn in the present

Touching the past and the future

To be eternal into the flow eternal

In the fountain of minds

As seen through the telescope of imagination

Poetry is the art born in mind

To be appealing to the heart

Like sunrays, beams and twinkles

It is the lens to visualise

Mountain heights and ocean depths

A huge mansion to handle in the vacuum

It lights two hemispheres with its rays

At a time, in a fraction of time

It is a free bird to fly spree

All over the world sans VISA

Breaking all walls built by man.

Published: Poetcrit 39.2 (July - December 2026)

Unseen is Mysterious

Unseen is Mysterious

Seen is wonderful

Unseen is mysterious

One is minute

The other is majestic

One is microcosm

The other is macrocosm

In stature and in measure

Beyond conjecture

Unseen to the physical eye

Like the sprout inside the seed

When sown, it turns into the tree

For its miracles of selfless service

Like the bud, all to hide

The beautiful flower at its heart

With all spectacular charms

of hidden treasures,

It is the spirit of creation,

It is not the colour to echo its melody,

It is not the melody to decide its colour,

The creation hides the butterfly

Its charms and grace

In its rugged caterpillar

Like the beauty of a poem

To dawn from musings

It is the amazing reality

Its creation knows

It is the Beauty that reflects

The Truth of creation.

Published: Poetcrit 39.2 (July - December 2026)

River’s Autobiography

River’s Autobiography

I am all and wholesome,

Starting from the blue

As small and tiny in nature,

But majestic and mighty in stature

For my journey winsome.

As the sign of unison,

United to leap forth to the deep

From highs to lows

From the head to the foot

As raindrops in communion, showered

When clouds delivered,

Amid sparks and lightnings

Amid roars and thunders

For the flow of my life from wombs,

Battering all over the tops,

Flowing through glaciers.

Sunrays pass through my dot mien

Offering the pretty rainbow,

My choicest gift for the joy of viewers.

I feel pride for my ride lively

In my constant flow lovely,

Bubbling and gurgling,

Full in might, full in life

I flow ...I flow

With glow on my brow,

Twinkling with stars in nights

Shining with the sunrays in days.

My flow is ceaseless in bliss

Selfless in service,

Relentlessly quenching the thirsts

Of parched throats of lands

Offering the breath to creatures,

Seeds sown and hidden

I deck them all in green

For life to shine in life-sheen.

It is my pristine and primary duty

In my long autobiography in enormity,

The course of my flow, invincible in force

From ups to downs

With twists and turns.

The pebbles, purling pearls at my bottom,

Know that I travel sans weariness.

I live ever in my flow to echo

In boatmen’s songs,

Letting sailors sail on my flow.

I glimpse all gazing me in love,

Offering prayers in devotion,

I offer them free gifts for life.

With me, they love to make a parley

I care for all, leaving nobody

It is my relation and concern,

Minding my sole sojourn.

I reach my mighty mother-ocean

As a foetus at her heart

To be born for my flow ever,

the present to merge the past

To live in the future,

The eternity of my journey.

Published: Poetcrit 39.2 (July - December 2026)

Life, “A linear-Time Dimension” in Human Time:An Overview of Philip Larkin’s Poetry

 Rajamouly Katta

Life, “A linear-Time Dimension” in Human Time:

An Overview of Philip Larkin’s Poetry

Abstract

According to Larkin, life is a texture in “a linear-time dimension”. It is a hard journey through time in which “happiness is too going” (TLD, 44). It is the illusion of illusions as time rules life to turn it into a supreme illusion.  All time - present, past, and future – serves as a three-fold illusion and becomes a source for disappointments in life. Mortality and futility are the inevitable facts of life. The future, which is unpromising, acts as a harbinger of misfortunes including death, the harshest fact of life. The present is seen with a series of failures and frustrations in life on the collapse of castles built in the air. The past is past to serve as a reminder of what we ought to have been. Life after all is in thrall to time’s constant flux.

 

Key words:

 

Time, powers, thrall, illusion, life, birth, growth, childhood, youth, middle age, old age, death, mortality, future, expectations, aims, dreams, present, the past, futility, failures, disappointments, sadness, and miseries.

***

            A human grows conscious of time and its inexorable flow to bring about inevitable changes in life. He finds his child growing from childhood to youth and his parents growing from middle age to old age. Time in its endless fleet brings about changes like growth or decline. His life flows with the stream of time. It is the study of life in the domain of time. There is a poet par excellence to deal with life in the reign of time in the British literary firmament. He is none other than Philip Larkin who as a poet treats time as man's element and believes in time to enthrall life. He, as a poet and man, grows conscious of the fact that human lives are in the strict governance of time,

                        What are days for?

                        Days are where we live

                        They come, they wake us

                        Time and time over.

                        They are to be happy in:

                        Where can we live but days?                                      “Days” (TWW, 27)

 

Larkin as a poet and man concurs with time as it conquers life by its invincible powers. For him, life is rooted in time, and it is in the thrall of time, as it exists in "a linear-time dimension". Time is not an abstract idea but has dramatic functions as a double-edged weapon, "eroding" agent. Time in its relentless, endless stream bestows on life mortality. It is time that bestows on us the brevity of life in time’s flow:

            Endlessly, time-honored irritant,

            ...                     ...                     ...

            It will grow again, until we begin dying                              (TLD, 19)

 

Life is therefore a voyage in the ocean of time with ebbs and tides.  Life is after all a sojourn to traverse from womb to tomb in time's domain. The concept of time in the life of every creature especially man is human time that is the focus and fulcrum of Larkin’s poetry.

 

Time as a double-edged weapon turns life mortal in life on one hand. It turns life futile in its exorable flow by shattering dreams, hopes, expectations and aims on the other hand. As a result, life is full of failures, tensions, disappointments, and frustrations against man's wishes in life,

           On this we blame our last

            Threadbare perspectives, seasonal decease.        “Triple Time” (TLD, 35)

       

Man looks at the future expecting it to be the harbinger of good fortune. It is to bring "the sparkling armada of promises" (TLS-20) like the cloud to shower rain, the tree to offer fruits or the ship to carry comforts to him,

           Always too eager for the future, we

            Pick up bad habits of expectancy.

            Something is always approaching; everyday

            Till then we say.                                                “Next, Please” (TLD, 20)

 

            Larkin has a clear perspective about time in time future, time present and time past. Time flows from the future through the present into the past. Man looks at the future in his childhood, loaded with dreams, expectations and wants. In the ravages of time, the promising future turns into the dull and prosaic present against all expectations in life as man does not fulfill all those for his disappointment. The present turns into the past to remind him of failures to prove that life is futility and nullity.

 

            All time-present, past, and future – serves as a source of discomforts and disappointments in our lives.  Larkin realistically portrays life and failures in life with snapshot details. As Calvin Bedient says, “Like Hardy and Frost, he uses imagination precisely in order to show what life is like when imagination is taken out of it.”

 

            Larkin accepts that all facts, all emotions, and all dreams, related to man’s life and measured by time. Life ceaselessly traverses through stages: birth, childhood, youth, middle age, and old age to culminate in the end of age in time's constant flux to show that life is vulnerable. Time's flow is irreversible and so life is futility first then, it leads to mortality,

                        Life is first boredom, then fear

                        Whether or not we use it, it goes,

                        And leaves what something hidden from us chose,

                        And age and then only the end of age.   “Dockery and Son” (TWW, 38)

 

            Life is in thrall in time's domain. Life goes against man's wishes. Man wants to live longer and happier but fails due to the ravages of time. According to Larkin, "something" is nothing but time in its powers that leads life, 

            Something is pushing them

                        To the side of their own lives.                          “Afternoons” (TWW, 44)

 

            Man's life in the animal kingdom marks a clear-cut departure from floral life, plant kingdom. Man's life culminates in death, the end of life. Larkin, as an agnostic feels that there is no life or rebirth after death. Life culminates in inevitable mortality, death as the deadline to the breath of life to mark a difference from trees. The trees have the yearly trick of looking new but not man's life that starts its voyage in the river of time with birth and advances youth, middle age to old age and finally to inevitable death. Birth gives life to man, but life gives death to him in its journey through time. For Larkin, “life necessarily means time” as time is man's element. What we were, are and will be decided by time alone.  Time in its constant flux and its effects in the life of man is the nucleus of his poetry.

 

            Life is the union of three important stages: birth, marriage (growth) and death. Life exists between two oblivions: birth and death with the shelters of womb and tomb respectively. Church represents, “a serious house on serious earth” for the three stages in “Church going” (TLD, 28) as it is the place, which has much to do with birth and marriage and more to do with death.

                        Only in separation – marriage, and birth

            And death, and thoughts of there – for which was built

            This special shell?                                        “Church Going” (TLD, 29)

 

            Birth initiates life voyage in the ocean of time. Larkin photographically depicts life with birth in the womb,

                        “... a sense of falling, like an arrow-shower

                        Sent out of sight somewhere becoming rain.”                    (TWW, 21).

 

            Here rain serves as a symbol of energy for the creation of life by means of birth, the first and foremost stage. The “arrow shower” and “falling” are suggestive of life. Birth is always of interest since it is a serious aspect of life:

            About being beautiful,

            Or running off a spring

            Of innocence and love-

            They will all wish you that,

            And should it prove possible,

            Well, you’re a lucky girl.                           “Born yesterday” (TLD, 24)

 

Life initiated by birth first leads to childhood, the stage of innocence when we are "Always too eager for the future," “Next, Please” (TLD, 20). In the stage we hope that the future will fulfill our expectations, dreams and desires by means of “our adult enterprise” (TLD, 35) but we are indeed ignorant of what will surely happen to us.  We experience a series of failures, missed opportunities and disappointments,

            And on another day will be the past,

            A valley cropped by fat neglected chances

            That we insensately forbore to fleece

            On this we blame our last

            Threadbare perspectives, seasonal decease.        “Triple Time” (TLD, 35)

 

 As seen from my childhood, the future is the stage of innocence is the harbinger of good fortune. The future is full of dreams and expectations. Larkin focuses on childhood from two angles. One is to see the stage in childhood days with “sparkling armada of promises” (TLD, 20) and an optimistic outlook in fulfilling of them. He watches the stage in the middle age of his life with the experiences as childhood with unfulfilled promises,

            We think each one will heave to and unload

            All good into our lives, all we are owed

            For waiting so devoutly and so long

            But we are wrong.                                                “Next, Please” (TLD, 20)

 

  Life passes from the future, the stage of innocence in childhood to that of experience in adulthood. The present that was once the future as seen from childhood with its dreams, expectations and desires turns dry, dull, and prosaic. Larkin as a poet finds them shattered in the present in the ceaseless flow of time. Life encounters a series of clashes between what we expect and what we experience. Larkin’s poetry holds mirror to the clashes between the opposing attitudes in life: illusion and reality, truth and hypocrisy, desire and actuality, choice and failure, hope and hopelessness, fact and fantasy, solitariness and sociability, work and idleness, plan and practice and so on.

 

Blake, Wordsworth, Dylan Thomas, Thomas Hood, Subhadra Kumari Chowhan many other poets feel like recalling the past and fill their hearts with happiness, but Larkin does not sentimentalize the past.

 

            Larkin has a unique way to forget the past and so he does not sentimentalize it as he treats it as forgotten boredom. In “Coming” he treats his childhood as the uneventful, “a forgotten boredom” (TLD, 17).  He never attaches any nostalgic importance to childhood. Larkin's poem, “I Remember, I Remember” reflects the memories of the poet’s own past without any sign of sentimentality: “my childhood was unspent” (TLD, 38). Childhood does not look familiar to him now in middle age.  All the places connected to his childhood or youth have nothing to remind him of anything worthy,

‘was that’, my friend smiled, ‘where you “have your roots”?’

No, only where my childhood was unspent,

I wanted to retort, just where I started:     “I Remember, I Remember”, (TLD, 38)

 

            Larkin’s attitude towards childhood is in contrast with that of Thomas Hood, Subadra Kumari Chowhan, Dylan Thomas and Wordsworth.  They treat it as a delightful and spectacular event. Thomas Hood’s poem “I Remember, I Remember” is an example for its very much nostalgia and sentiment:

            I Remember, I Remember

            The house where I was born

            The little windows where the sun

            Same peeping at noon:

            He never came to wink too soon

            Never brought too long a day

            But now, I often with the night

            Had born my breath away.      Poem No: 224, pal groves golden Treasury.

 

            Larkin disagrees with the notions of romanticized childhood as in Thomas Hood. He treats his childhood in Coventry as an uneventful event and the period of dire nullity, emptiness and even dullness. He describes his childhood as the stage “unspent” to mean that it has “scarcely happened at all.”

 

            By stopping the entries in his diary, the poet attempts to forget his childhood in the past though it is an integral part of his life. Larkin draws a thick curtain over his past because he finds the present life empty, dry, and meaningless in the ravages of time.

 

            Larkin as a poet recognizes the ordinariness of childhood.  He treats his whole life as an ordinary one like that of unnumbered ordinary people.  Referring to Larkin, P.R. King says that we “cannot escape the mundane lot of a perfectly ordinary life”.

 

Larkin wishes Kingsley Amis’s daughter, Sally Amis an ordinary life: “an average of talents.”

            May you be ordinary;

            Have, like other women,

            An average of talents.

            Not ugly, not good-looking

            Nothing uncustomary

            To pull you off you balance                         “Born Yesterday” (TLD, 24)

 

The poem, “Maiden Name” reflects the change in the maiden name of the poet’s former girlfriend, which has significance up to the marriage of a girl.  In the wake of her marriage, the maiden name, associated once with her girlhood and adolescence is transformed to a different one in life. The maiden name is to mean now “what we feel now about you then” (LD, 23). The maiden name embodying her young beauty is “applicable to no one” now. Life brings in this transformation in time’s flow:

            Marrying left your maiden name disused;

            Its five light sounds no longer means your face,

            Your voice and all your variants of grace;         “Maiden Name” (TLD, 23)

 

Larkin feels that the maiden name, associated with her youth belongs to the past. In the present, the maiden name is “past and gone”.

 

            In “Lines on a young Lady’s Photograph Album”, the Larkin speaker comments on his girlfriend’s family album and the impossibility of photograph in preserving a moment of reality. The photographs of the past life in the album strike a sharp contrast in real life in the present. The girl’s youth in the past is in faithful arrest in the photographs to contrast with her past in the present.  The past is past in the constant fleet of time,

            That this is a real girl in a real place,

            …        …        …        …        …

            Or is it just the past? Those flowers, that gate

            These misty parks and motors, Lacerate

            Simply by being over; you

            Contract my heart by looking out of date.

                “Lines on a young Lady’s Photograph Album” (TLD, 13)

 

The snapshot details in the album appear to be “out of date” and growing “smaller and clearer as the years go by” in the passage of time.

 

Larkin, as a thirty-year old poet makes constant futile attempts to destroy the barrier of time as stated in “Reference Back”.  He opines that the ceaseless flow of time is responsible for his separation from his mother and his youth turning into his middle age.  He therefore firmly believes in the conviction that the shocking transformation from youth to middle age results in time's flow. It also leads him to “unsatisfactory age” in the 'Reference Back' (TWW, 40) in the present life. Three decades of life in time is prone to become “unsatisfactory”.

 

In “verse De society”, the poet expects much pleasure but experiences otherwise,

            Only the young can be alone freely.

            …        …        …        …        …        …        …

            Not peace, but other things.                    “Verse De Society”, (HW, 35)

 

“How Distant” says that youth is transitory, and the aims of youth are shattered as time advances life from youth to middle age.  The Larkin speaker gains bitter experiences in middle age in the inexorable flow of time. He feels that youth has relentlessly deserted him. He grows with the sense of his remoteness from “being young.”

 

            How distant, the departure of young men

            Down valleys, or watching

            The green shore past the salt-white cordage

            Rising and falling.                                               “How Distant” (HW, 31)

 

            Larkin realizes the harsh realities of life, as he becomes a victim to inevitable failure in satiation of his desires, dreams, and expectations in youth. He experiences irreparable loss of youth, as he does not regain it.

 

            Of being young; that it can’t come again,

            But it is for others undiminished somewhere.         “Sad Steps” (HW, 32)

 

In time’s endless flow, our lives advance to death, mortality, realize the fact that life is a series of failures and disappointments as futility. Consequently, man grows pessimistic about the future.  Bruce Martin points out the fact that Larkin as poet and man never thinks or the future with bright hopes in his middle age, saying, “Earlier he looks towards the future, here he confines his attention to either his past or his present”.

 

Larkin presents the picture of the emotional misery of wives in middle age in “Afternoons”. The wives have lost their youth and charm, and experienced monotonous household routine. They, as mothers, lead to middle age and old age.

 

“At Grass” presents a graphic overview of old age. The sunrise of life leads to the sunset of life. In decrepit old age, limbs become weak, and eyesight plays hide-and seek,

            The eye can hardly pick the out.                        “At Grass” (TLD, 45)

              

Horses in the retired stage cannot gain youth, name, and fame in the present. Retiring from the race, the horses are leading to old age and decrepit old age and only “the end of age” (TWW, 38).

           And not a field glass sees them home,

            …        …        …        …        …

            With bridles as the evening come.                         “At Grass” (TLD, 45)

 

For Larkin, man is worried about the brevity of life. Old age like disease causes dread in life, as it advances life to the threshold of death for endless extinction. In an interview, Larkin refers to the dread of old age:

 

“Yes, dreadfully. If you assume you’re going to live to be seventy, seven decades, and think of each decade as a day of the week, starting with Sunday, then. I’m on Friday afternoon now Rather a shock, isn’t it? If you ask why doesn’t bother me, I can only say I dread endless extinction.”

 

Larkin identifies with old people when he says, “Why aren’t they screaming?” (HW, 19) He shares the suffering of old people. He calls old people “old fools” since they lose the power of memory and cannot remember what has happened. They behave in a childish way during old age,

         …Do they somehow suppose

            It’s more grown–up when your mouth hangs open and drools.

            And you keep on pissing yourself.                  “The Old Fools” (HW, 19).

 

Larkin questions the old people on their ignorance of death: “How can they ignore it?” in “The Old Fools” (HW, 19). Old Fools live “Not here and now, but where all they happened once” (HW, 20). Death becomes indispensable to the old because life is time-bound. In the voyage of life, old people are quite aware of the aging process and the approach of death. The subject of old age is powerfully dramatized in this poem "The Old Fools". He feels that life is “slow dying” (TWW, 11) as man has the dread of aging. He becomes much pessimistic because of both the fragility of man and the dread of old age that ultimately culminates in death and futility in life. Consequently, we feel for our failure in our attempts and realize that life is futile under the “solving emptiness” (TWW, 33). As P R King says, Larkin “records the various ways in which man pulls the wool over his own eyes in being tempted to believe that he can achieve a paradise of money, or fame, or sex, or close relationship with others”.

 

Larkin accepts the supremacy of time and time as the conqueror of man’s life.  His attempts to fulfill his desires but fail in the passage of time, “suffering is exact” (TLD, 37) in the governance of time.  Life leads to the state of sadness in the tyranny of merciless passage of time since it fills life with a series of failures and deceptions rather than adventures and rewards. As Salem K. Hasan rightly judges Larkin’s poetry, “Truly, life becomes even thinner when we contemplate the idea of human life being ‘dispersed’ into nothingness”.

 

Larkin’s own sensitivity to human suffering is evident in his poetry, He believes that life travels through wilderness, "The train runs through wilderness", Poem: XII (TNS, 24) It is time to make life travel through wildness, sadness, and nothingness in its flux, "There is regret.  Always, there is regret" “Poem: XXIV” (TNS, 37). In poem I (To Bruce Montegomery) the refrain, “A drum taps: a wintry drum” is suggestive of Larkin’s early awareness of sadness. Philip Gardner says that in Larkin’s poetry there is “early awareness of sadness at the back of things, of the passing of time and inevitability of death”.  

 

Man struggles for the harmony of fulfillment, but he undergoes experiences contrary to his choice despite his constant struggle.  The hopes, dreams and desires in life will collapse leading to the realization that life has sadness or melancholy to the core.  Terry Whalen puts it, “The North Ship is quite pale, not to mention, consciously aiming, in its youthful and contrived sadness.”

 

“Home Is So Sad” echoes the sadness of the speaker, which is in fact the inevitable state of human condition to result in the mortal nature and futile existence because of time’s eroding agents:

            Home is so sad. It stays as it was left,

            Shaped to the comfort of the last to go

            As if to win them back. Instead, bereft

            Of anyone to please, it withers so,

            Having no heart to put aside the theft.      “Home is so sad” (TWW, 17)

 

In poems like “Cut Grass”, “The Trees”, “Sad Steps” and “Solar” the poet shows an analogy between man and the trees as they both exist in a “linear–time dimension”. Like man, the trees feel that “their greenness is a kind of grief” (HW, 12) as their leaves and flowers fall to the ground in autumn. In “Cut Grass”, there is a tone of sadness on the part of trees for transience as leaves and flowers shed for destruction like man’s life.

            Cut grass lies frail:

            Brief is the breath.                                              “Cut Grass”, (HW, 41)

 

Larkin portrays clashes that our lives always confront in life. He draws the “thick curtains” between what we expect earlier and what we realize later to fill our lives with misery as man inherits misery and passes it onto man and this is inevitable in the destructive force of time:

            Man hands on misery to man

            It deepens like a coastal shelf,

            Get out as early as you can,

            And don’t have kids yourself                     “This Be the Verse”, (HW, 30)

                                                                                                

Misery persists as long as man exists. Desires are the root cause of human misery. Consequently, man grows pessimistic as he experiences a series of disappointments, failures, and frustrations. The poem reflects, as Grevel Lindop says, that man’s “splendid exposure of facile pessimism” Andrew Motion says, “Larkin has often been regarded as hopeless and inflexible pessimist.”

 

Larkin presents life as a texture in “a linear-time dimension”. It is a hard journey through time in which “happiness is too going” (TLD, 44). When life is an illusion, time that rules life serves as a supreme illusion.  All time - present, past, and future - serves as a three-fold illusion and becomes a source for disappointments in life. Mortality and futility are the inevitable facts of life. The future, which is unpromising, acts as a harbinger of misfortunes including death, the harshest fact of life. The present is seen with a series of failures and disappointments in life on the collapse of castles built in the air. The past is past to serve as a reminder of what we ought to have been. Life after all is in thrall to time’s constant flux.

Published: 

Poetcrit 39.2 (July - December 2026)

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