"This Be The Verse" is a lyric poem in three stanzas with an alternating rhyme scheme, by the English poet Philip Larkin (1922–1985).
Larkin himself compared it with W. B. Yeats's "Lake Isle of Innisfree" and said he expected to hear it recited in his honour by a thousand Girl Guides before he died.
The speaker, addressing the reader directly, expresses the idea that parents put a lot of emotional weight on their children with the famous line, "They fuck you up, your mum and dad".
Lord Justice Wall referred to the emotional damage caused to the child, saying: "These four lines seem to me to give a clear warning to parents who, post-separation, continue to fight the battles of the past, and show each other no respect.
"[5] Poet Adrian Mitchell wrote an upbeat parody of the poem that begins with the lines "They tuck you up, your Mum and Dad, / They read you Peter Rabbit, too.
The poem was set to music by Matthew Bannister for the album Hard Love Stories (1988) by New Zealand band Sneaky Feelings.