Love Songs in Age - Larkin

From within the first stanza of Larkins poem, "Love Songs in Age" the audience instantly picks up that one of the themes in this poem is about love. Throughout the first stanza we see the story unfold of a women that had kept these music sheets she had when she was younger. She had forgotten about them and is shown with the word, "bleached". From this we get the interpretation of something loved being neglected for a long time and states that this sheet of music has suffered this neglet constantly through the days. As we continue through the stanza we see that there are happy and important memories being brought up throughout the poem. We see this due to the line, "And coloured, by her daughter" which stats to us how important they were to her then and how important it is that she has now been reunited with these music sheets. They hold happy memories of the past about family life and links to having loyal friends as she reminiscenes the scene.
As we go on to the second stanza we see that from looking at these music sheets begins to bring further memories back from the past. The first line within the second stanza implies to us readers of discovering these sheets has enabled her to remember the chords to play this well loved tune and shows also that this is controlled by touch. The phrase, "submissive chord" suggests to the reader that the piece has not changed over time whilst the womens age has. It also informs the audience that when playing music it becomes alive to people and brings out the human characteristics that it has from various different styles. As we continue through this stanza we see that she remembers the memories of youth and hope from the phrase, "being young" and the powerful connection she had with the song. It has seemed to given this women a new sense of life as she has discovered this music once more.
Through the third and final stanza we then see that she cannot control the emotions that comes with this piece nor the fact that she is unable to control time. She is dazzled by this music she has found and we see that with the word "brilliance" we are given the impression that love doesnt clarify but diverts us. Within the final stanza we begin to see that her youth was full of life and with little doubts and she had full confidence with the future she had coming her way. With continuing with the poem we then see that there is a false pretence with the phrase, "promising to solve, and satisfy" informing us that everything will be fine but it doesnt deliver all its promises. Then there is a sudden change within the words as we see that the persona is moved to tears for the loss of her husband and we see that music is unable to solve the problems of life and having a gloomy look on love will not solve the problems you face.
From this poem we see that Larkin has mainly portrayed the themes of music, love and loss which link into serveral other of his poems such as, Talking in Bed and also Wild Oats.