Homage to a Government

by Philip Larkin
10 January 1969

Next year we are to bring all the soldiers home
For lack of money, and it is all right.
Places they guarded, or kept orderly,
We want the money for ourselves at home
Instead of working. And this is all right.

It's hard to say who wanted it to happen,
But now it's been decided nobody minds.
The places are a long way off, not here,
Which is all right, and from what we hear
The soldiers there only made trouble happen.
Next year we shall be easier in our minds.

Next year we shall be living in a country
That brought its soldiers home for lack of money.
The statues will be standing in the same
Tree-muffled squares, and look nearly the same.
Our children will not know it's a different country.
All we can hope to leave them now is money.


i was doing revision and chanced upon this poem of Larkin's written way back in 1969 - funny how a poem written 38 years ago is still so relevant today, considering the anti-war debates in the UK and how we should "bring the soldiers home"...