Here is the eighteen-year-old Larkin writing mopey-adolescent poetry. It's endearing. He compares himself to Dylan Thomas and Auden, writing that his "swan of music" is
Lacking the wordy bloodstream at command,
The green selfconscious spurt that drives the hand
Of Dylan in his womb of whiskey rocked,
And lacking too the brilliant-muscled tact
Of Auden riding through his ogreland.
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Aaron Poochigian
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