Home Is So Sad

This is a short poem by Larkin which explores themes of nostalgia and the idea of a heartbroken, lonely home who's owners have left it behind. Larkin presents the house as having an emotional response; he uses anthropomorphism to make the home come alive, portraying it as a character. For example, the home is said to 'wither' and feel 'sad' - this creates a tone of heartbreak, supposedly stemming from the fact that the home is 'bereft / Of anyone to please' (it's owners have left).
    Typical of other poems within The Whitsun Weddings collection, such as 'Love Songs In Age', Larkin nostalgically looks back upon time which have past - better times - '...what it started as, / A joyous shot at how things ought to be, / Long fallen wide.' These lines in the second stanza portray a sense of disappointment; the life which Larkin has been presented with is inadequate to what he imagined his future to entail. It appears that the home is not in fact sad, but Larkin was sad at home due to the things which passed and no longer remain. These things are represented through some simple elements: '...the pictures and the cutlery. / The music in the piano stool. That vase.' These are all the things that made him happy before, and they hold connotations of jolly things; the word 'pictures' makes the reader think of friends, family and memories, whilst 'cutlery' suggests dinner parties. The reader interprets 'The music' as being jolly, and the fact that it is now hidden away 'in the piano stool' could possibly depict the way in which it is in the past, and no longer acts as a source of happiness for Larkin. The word 'vase' suggests flowers, which themselves hold connotations of happiness and new life. The caesura used in the final line splits it into two sentences, the final one consisting of just two words: 'That vase.' This is dramatic and abrupt, and appears to finalise Larkin's opinion that the past is gone, and cannot be returned.