“And specious stuff that says No rational being/Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing/That this is what we fear—no sight, no sound,/No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,/Nothing to love or link with,/The anaesthetic from which none come round.”
Lack of faith in organized religion is a theme in several of Larkin’s poems, but in “Aubade,” the speaker also rejects rationalism. He sees the suggestion that one shouldn’t fear death because we can’t feel it as absurd because to him, that lack of feeling is exactly what’s so terrifying about it. “Not seeing” is a pun—it states that those that advocate this rationalist view don’t understand the speaker’s fear, but also preconfigures the next lines about “no sight, no sound,” and so on. The repetition of “no” paired with various senses and “nothing” emphasizes the horror of this inevitability. Line 29, “nothing to love or link with,” is further underscored by its departure from the iambic pentameter that most of the poem follows, emphasizing the isolation death will bring.
“...Courage is no good:/It means not scaring others. Being brave /Lets no one off the grave./Death is no different whined at than withstood.”
By beginning a sentence mid-line (“Courage is no good”), Larkin highlights the speaker’s racing thoughts that jump from one subject to another. Here, the speaker rejects the notion of facing death with courage and defiance, arguing that doing so is pointless since the result will be the same—being dead—no matter how he approaches dying. The rhyme between “brave” and “grave” underscores this idea, emphasizing that even bravery can’t help one escape death. These lines also subtly reinforce the idea that the speaker’s fear of death lies in his terror of facing it in isolation. He doesn’t express worry for the feelings of his loved ones, dismissing courage, which to him merely “means not scaring others.”
“Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring /In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring/Intricate rented world begins to rouse./The sky is white as clay, with no sun.”
The image of telephones crouching, which begins Larkin’s description of the working world in the final stanza of “Aubade,” is rather imposing and threatening—after all, animals crouch when they’re preparing to pounce and attack. Not only is work monotonous, as the first line of the poem implies, but it’s even scary, too. “Locked-up offices” further the sense of isolation in the poem: even at work with others, people remain cut off from the world. Larkin’s description of the sky “white as clay” is bleak, suggesting a dull, blank color rather than a beautiful, vivid sunrise. The idea of the sky “with no sun” only deepens that bleakness.
