To the tune of "Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do," this 1974 epistle (unsent) to Professsor Donald Davie:
Davie, Davie,
Give me a bad review;
That's your gravy,
Telling chaps what to do.
Forget about style and passion,
As long as it's in the fashion —
But let's be fair, it's got you a chair,
Whcih was all it was meant to do.
The last lines are the poem's weak link and Larkin 's friend Kingsey Amis suggested that he change them to "But it's got you a chair, hich, let's be fair, / Was the most that you had in view."
from Philip Larkin, The Complete Poems ed. Archue Burnett
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012). A paperback version of this essential
volume has an official publication date of April 2.