Philip Larkin

"Homage to a Government"

This eerie poem by Larkin seems very appropriate for America today as we usher troops back home after a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan. The poem was written in 1969 and was a response to the end of the war in Vietnam.  It is a cynical look at relationship between the American people and the government's military actions abroad.  The American people with their disparate and media-influenced opinions about war sacrifice their sons and daughters to unjust wars.  In "Hommage to a Government,"  Larkin explains that "Next year we are to bring the soldiers home / For lack of money, and it is all right." (Lines 1-2).  The impact of war on the economy seems to be the focus of the poem, Larkin ends the piece with "All we can hope to leave them now is money." (Line 18).  This ending arrives after a slow and indifferent explanation of how it was that soldiers ended up abroad only to cause harm there and to return home for lack of money but "this is all right." The refrain of "this is all right" occurs three times in the poem and with great impact each time.  The poem overall is full of irony.  The reader easily detects the subtext or latent content which actually addresses the futility of the war.  The voice of the speaker is complacent and subdued.  The distance of the war abroad has caused us to forget that we are at war as was the case with other wars.  One can easily imagine that the speaker is a common man who derives his opinions from the nightly news, the papers, and the political institutions that he was taught to trust. Ignorance is bliss after all.  This is not the voice of draft dodgers, angry protesters or the mothers of soldiers who have died abroad.  This is the voice of the middle-aged, working class male who swallows whatever propaganda and misinformation that he is fed.  The character we derive from this poem belies the questioning voice of reason in the subtext who implores the audience to take a critical look at the official story.