In yesterday’s post, I reflected on Philip Larkin‘s poem “An Arundel Tomb,” especially it’s haunting last line, “What will survive of us is love.” It reminded me of another great 20^th century English poet, W. H. Auden, who also wrote a poignant line about love and death, “We must love one another or die.” Continue reading W. H. Auden’s, “We must love one another or die.” →

Pictured above is the 14th-century tomb effigy in Chichester Cathedral that inspired Philip Larkin’s poem “An Arundel Tomb.” It is the tomb of Richard FitzAlan, 10th Earl of Arundel (1306-1376), and his wife, Eleanor of Lancaster, Countess of Arundel (1311- 1372) Notice how Richard’s glove has been removed so he can grasp the flesh of Eleanor’s hand. The poem ends with these evocative lines:

Time has transfigured them into
Untruth. The stone fidelity
They hardly meant has come to be
Their final blazon, and to prove
Our almost-instinct almost true:
What will survive of us is love.

Philip Larkin is generally considered one of the greatest English-language poets of the last century. However the last line above is uncharacteristic of Larkin’s typically downbeat poetry.

So what does the line “What will survive us is love” mean? Larkin may be implying that the lovers are joined in death as they were in life, at least until the ravages of time finally erase their stone figures. Maybe the joined hands were the sculptor’s idea and do not reflect a real love at all—perhaps that is the meaning of the line “transfigured them into untruth.” Larkin himself said the tomb deeply affected him, but he also scribbled at the bottom of one draft: “love isn’t stronger than death just because two statues hold hands for six hundred years.” Yet the poem doesn’t say that “love is stronger than death.” It says love survives us, and to survive something doesn’t make you stronger than it.