First Sight - Larkin

First Sight is another of the shorter poems by Larkin to do with beliefs and like Water the poem is positive in nature. The first quote from within the first stanza reinforces the positive nature of this poem. The 'lambs that learn to walk in snow' suggests that these lambs are new to life and have many opportunities ahead of them. However, they also meet a 'vast unwelcome' representing that anything could happen to these lambs. In a sense, Larkin is commenting on the harsh side of life. This is further reinforced through other parts in this stanza such as 'sunless glare' and 'is a wretched width of cold'. We also get the rhyming scheme in the first stanza through 'fold and cold'. These adjectives are used to describe the world and through this life itself.

Within the second stanza we get the intense description of the mother lamb, 'Her fleeces wetly caked'. This is intense description of the baby lambs first being born, this links to this idea of nature and how all of life is born from it. Larkin is conveying a more philosophical idea about the wider world through this. We also get the quote in this stanza 'Earth's immeasurable surprise' suggesting that 'Earth' itself is going to hit the lambs with surprises in life. In a way, Larkin uses the lambs as a metaphor for human life, assessing the view that life isn't always easy that it can get hard sometimes. The ending of this poem is very interesting through the quote 'What soon will wake and grow utterly unlike the snow'. Larkin has used an oxymoron to compare something growing and something dying. Larkin is commenting that this is what life is like sometimes, it can go from one extreme to the other, therefore through this the oxymoron is also a metaphor for human life. The use of the snow represents winter and death and is a total contrast to something that has just been born such as the lambs. Larkin's main message within this poem is that when something is born it has many opportunities ahead. However when something dies it has lived its life already. Overall Larkin's beliefs on life in this poem isn't entirely negative and links well to the other Larkin belief poem Water.

In a sense this poem could link to the poem by Abse A Wall as in both of these poems we get the sense of a hopeful future for life. This hopefulness is represented to us through nature and setting.