The poet says it is difficult to find words that are:
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Correct answer: A. at once honest and caring
Explanation
'Words at once true and kind' — honesty and kindness pull apart.
Note: Passage I is Philip Larkin's 'Talking in Bed' (The Whitsun Weddings, 1964), which is copyrighted and not reproduced. Lying together should be the easiest talk, 'an emblem of two people being honest', yet time passes silently. Outside, the wind's unrest and the dark towns on the horizon care nothing, and it grows harder to find words 'at once true and kind, / Or not untrue and not unkind'.
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