Toad work

A poem by Philip Larkin called "Toads"

Why should I let the toad work Squat on my life?
Can't I use my wit as a pitchforkAnd drive the brute off?

Six days of the week it soils With its sickening poison -
Just for paying a few bills!That's out of proportion.

Lots of folk live on their wits:Lecturers, lispers,Losers,
loblolly-men, louts-They don't end as paupers;

Lots of folk live up lanesWith fires in a bucket,
Eat windfalls and tinned sardines-They seem to like it.

Their nippers have got bare feet,
Their unspeakable wivesAre skinny as whippets - and yetNo one actually _starves_.

Ah, were I courageous enough To shout,
Stuff your pension!But I know, all too well, that's the stuff That dreams are made on:

For something sufficiently toad-like Squats in me, too;
Its hunkers are heavy as hard luck,And cold as snow,

And will never allow me to blarney My way of getting
The fame and the girl and the moneyAll at one sitting.

I don't say, one bodies the other One's spiritual truth;
But I do say it's hard to lose either,When you have both.

Thought I would just post a poem just like that for your read?? No, thats not what I am doing here..:-)
I was reading the above poem which gave the bitter truth of life.

Sometimes when we see people out on streets, their uncaring attitude towards life, eating what they can manage for the day, wearing rags. But we feel they are not bothered at all with what they eat, what they wear, what they speak and yet life goes on for them. They seem to be quite satisfied, or thats what we think we see.


We are employed and we have dreams, dreams about the future,dreams about what we should do in our old age, dreams about where we should live and how we should live. To fulfill all these, we work hard all our lives, sometimes by overcoming what we actully want to do, I mean dream job or dream career.

Sometimes when I go out to balcony of our office for freah air, I still see cars, trucks passing by with noise allaround. Then I feel how good it would be if I were working in a place full of mountains, rivers flowing around. But I know if I have to live someplace like that then I will not be getting the comfort and quick life which I get here in city.


Sometimes I too feel like leading life as uncaringly as possible. But still I know it's not possible and then I just smile to myself at the hard truth of life which everyone experiences.....

I know this is quite obvious and most of us know this is the truth, still I wanted to put my thoughts down.

Regards.