Money

By Philip Larkin (1922 - 1985)

Quarterly, is it, money reproaches me: 
  "Why do you let me lie here wastefully? 
I am all you never had of goods and sex,
  You could get them still by writing a few cheques."
So I look at others, what they do with theirs:
  They certainly don't keep it upstairs.
By now they've a second house and car and wife:
  Clearly money has something to do with life 
--- In fact, they've a lot in common, if you enquire:
  You can't put off being young until you retire,
And however you bank your screw, the money you save
  Won't in the end buy you more than a shave.
I listen to money singing. It's like looking down
  From long French windows at a provincial town,
The slums, the canal, the churches ornate and mad
  In the evening sun. It is intensely sad.