THE TREES by Philip Larkin

The trees are coming into leaf

Like something almost being said;

The recent buds relax and spread,

Their greenness is a kind of grief.

Is it that they are born again

And we grow old? No, they die too,

Their yearly trick of looking new

Is written down in rings of grain.

Yet still the unresting castles thresh

In fullgrown thickness every May.

Last year is dead, they seem to say,

Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.

THE TITLE

Reading the title I expect the poem will be about nature.

LAYOUT

The structure of the poem is made up of three quatrains of four lines each.

DENOTATIVE ANALYSIS

The first quatrain introduces the topic of the poem. The speaking voice describes the leaves that are coming to life again in springs. In the second stanza the speaking voice make a question and then he answers to it immediately. This quatrain conveys the poet's doubt. Then he says that trees died like people even if they look new every year. The last stanza concludes the poem and the speaking voice underlines how despite the trees died every year they seem to be full with life and fresh.

CONNOTATIVE ANALYSIS

The text is written in rhyme. Its scheme  is ABBA, CDDC, EFFE. The first and the fourth lines are quite distant even if the rhyme seems to connect them. The most important link is between the middle lines when the poet contrast life and death. In the first stanza, in the first line there is an alliteration maybe to underline the question that the speaking voice ask to the reader to make he think about it. Possibly by this text the poet would like to convey to the reader that all being died at the end and they will come to life again in different ways. in this case trees use a kind of trick.