The title ‘Here’ may be chosen because Larkin did not want to name the place as Hull as we the reader may have had associated Hull with many preconceptions before reading the poem. So by calling it ‘Here’ the reader has a clear mind and will take every line for what it is and so each line will have a deeper meaning as the place is mysterious to the reader and the poet can control what information about the place he wants us to know. Compared to “Composed Upon Westminster Bridge” it clearly states where it takes place and so it is completely the opposite in that respect to Larkin’s poem. Larkin does not give away what he is thinking and feeling until the last stanza but Wordsworth indicates his argument in the first line, “Earth has not anything to show more fair:” You can judge the feeling behind Wordsworth's statement. It seems to me to be one of absolute conviction. There is probably a tinge of awe in it too. The rest of the sonnet elaborates on the statement. But in Larkin’s poem he begins rapidly and quit negatively and then at the end stats to convey a more positive and slightly abstract perspective.
What also caught my attention were the certain semantic and grammatical patterns in the poem, relating to `swerving', the `swerving' in this poem is not quite like swerving in its contemporary uses. Typically, swerving is an act of avoidance, you `swerve away from' something, but without a target. You swerve in order to definitely not meet something. But in Larkin's poem swerving from, is complemented by swerving to. The sequence I picked up on was, Swerving from ..... swerving through .... swerving to. The order of our language descriptions often do not match the actual order in which things are experienced as we see in this poem. This sequence is used to describe the residents: they are, “residents from raw estates”, who “Push through plate-glass swing doors to their desires”. I noticed the extreme length of the poem's first sentence. It ran on until the first line of the last stanza, 24-lines. The final stanza is sharply different as there are three to four short sentences. The long sentence through the first stanzas is all visual note taking and a list is formed with little expansion on the items listed, not may adjectives. As the speaker is on a train I assume they are in a more semi-conscious dream state with vague thoughts streaming in. But in the final stanza he slows down. The grammar and syntax clarifies and simplifies. Larkin uses more precise and challenging statements and more philosophical.
There seems to be an extensive use of vocabulary relating to town or urban life, and alongside this a number of words relating to the country. I found a merging of town and country lexis. It does reflect Larkin’s conception of town life compared to country life. The use of, “Pastoral of ships up streets,” shows him commentating obliquely and emphasizing the lack of urbanization as the word ‘Pastoral’ is reflecting a ‘safe world’ as it is associated with the countryside and gives a pure image in my view. Wordsworth, appeals to his reader’s senses of sight, touch, taste, smell, and hearing. From the line, “….A sight so touching in its majesty;…” He makes you visualize that scene, that it encompasses you. “….All bright and glittering in the smokeless air. Never did sun more beautiful steep In his first splendor,…”. Wordsworth not only wants one to take notice of the sunrise, he wants one to be absorbed by its warm rays and feel relaxed, taking a breathe of fresh clean air. He makes you feel nothing but tranquil, picturing yourself there, looking at “the beauty of the morning” quiet, “asleep,” and “bare.” The word “lie” at the end of the sixth line conveys that the “ships, towers, domes, theaters, and temples” seem to recline and are conscious of their marvel. He incorporates nature into the scene with the line, “….Open unto the fields, and the sky;…” In a cityscape, one of the last things a reader would think about would be trees, plants and brush. He sets a very peaceful tone demonstrating nature co-existing with man. Wordsworth is so overcome by this perfection, that he cries out to God - thanking and praising him for allowing him to be a witness to such a sight. The river is moving at its own pace not being forced nor stopped. The “houses,” where the inhabitants live, the life of the city, seem to be suspended in time. Wordsworth’s ending simply reinforces the stillness, silence and angelic perfection of London at a morning sunrise. But in “Here”, stanza two is perhaps the most `thing'-dominated. We can support that claim by counting the number of nouns, twenty six I counted. This might reflect the speaker's conception of the town and the “residents from raw estates”. Line 2 in stanza two says that “Here cluster domes, statues, spires and cranes”, these are all stereotypical features found in a town this is in contrast to what Wordsworth thought and viewed these structures.
Puns and word-play are used in line 5 of stanza two, at least two words seem to invoke a double interpretation: dead, and stealing. The, “stealing flat-faced trolleys,” can be read into that the residents physically steal the trolleys or that all the trolleys are used by the residents so in a sense they ‘steal’ them as they deprive others of having one so they are stealing the opportunity from others of having one. In the case of dead, in the line, “dead straight miles”, the double interpretation involves a structural contrast between treating dead as a modifier of the adjective straight, and treating it as a separate adjective. The first interpretation, the miles are utterly straight; on the second interpretation, the miles are both dead and straight. Also it can imply that dead straight as a whole is less important than miles. If you want to highlight the words in `dead straight', you would want to bracket just the word dead, to show that it is less important than straight, but both words are less crucial than miles. Typical words like very, rather, quite, slightly cannot create such an ambiguity. One meaning was definitely and deliberately intended by the speaker and the second meaning was only possibly intended. The first meaning is more neutral, less evaluative, while the second is pejorative. In Wordsworth’s depiction there is not much wordplay in fact it is simplistic in poetic structure. The common language of “Composed Upon Westminster Bridge” makes it easily readable and understandable while still accessing a great deal of emotion. Wordsworth uses simplicity not only in structure, but also in poetic devices throughout the poem. Metaphors become irreplaceable to imagery. The lines “This city now doth, like a garment, wear/ The beauty of the morning” implies that morning is like a cloak draping the city. Wordsworth brings the very city alive as he personifies the river and even the sleeping houses. “...all that mighty heart is lying still!” the metaphor of the heart is very interesting as a heart beats constantly like London, being the capital and the center.
The words that might come to mind to characterize, collectively these residents' desires, are particularly cheap and materialistic, “Electric mixers, toasters, washers, driers”. However the poem is not only about ‘them’ but also about the ‘me’ that tells us about ‘them’. The speaker is there in the poem in the same way that a photograph not only records its visible contents but also implies something about the interests of the photographer who chose to record those contents. This is exactly the same for Wordsworth’s poem as it also captures and reflects his own ideology as does Lakin. Wordsworth allows the beauty of nature to shine past the ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples. The hustle and commotion of everyday city life is absent in the “silent, bare” morning and the air is smokeless without the running of factories. Similarly Larkin reproduces his own desire away from the materialistic and urban sprawl of the town and finds himself, “Here” in, “unfenced existence...out of reach.”