The poem
For nations vague as weed, For nomads among stones, Small-statured cross-faced tribes And cobble-close families In mill-towns on dark mornings Life is slow dying.
So are their separate ways Of building, benediction, Measuring love and money Ways of slow dying. The day spent hunting pig Or holding a garden-party,
Hours giving evidence Or birth, advance On death equally slowly. And saying so to some Means nothing; others it leaves Nothing to be said.
'For nations vague as weed' reminds the reader that Larkin famously hated abroad and so would be unable to describe these far off places accurately. Having said that, he then goes on to express the diversity of the way in which people spend their lives across the globe very effectively: 'The day spent hunting pig / Or holding a garden-party'. No matter how you spend your day, death is coming for us and will reach us…
Read the whole comment'For nations vague as weed' reminds the reader that Larkin famously hated abroad and so would be unable to describe these far off places accurately. Having said that, he then goes on to express the diversity of the way in which people spend their lives across the globe very effectively: 'The day spent hunting pig / Or holding a garden-party'. No matter how you spend your day, death is coming for us and will reach us all in the end. The final lines sum up the feeling this awful truth gives us: 'And saying so to some / Means nothing; others it leaves / Nothing to be said.' There is nothing we can do about this impending doom and oblivion we all face. A depressing and yet somehow liberating realisation. I hope people don't get hung up about it being about death. Larkin is freeing us from the complex questions the phenomenon presents us with: it is sad and scary but 'it leaves nothing to be said' so get on with hunting that pig.
Larkin describes different ways of living that others lead, and that as sad as it seems, and is common to all, life is not for ever and is slowly passing away.
Some are not conscious of the fact that life is not for ever, hence, the discussing the smaller aspects of life passing them by would have no meaning to them, whilst others are very aware that life is short, and do not need to be reminded.
Philip Larkin
This short poem describes in a highly suggestive manner the slow movement of things and persons toward death. It is evidently a pessimistic poem. Larkin was obsessed with the idea and the stark reality of death.
The last line "nothing to be said" evokes the thought that we cannot stop death.