Best Society
By: Philip Larkin
When I was a child, I thought, Casually, that solitude Never needed to be sought. Something everybody had, Like nakedness, it lay at hand, Not specially right or specially wrong, A plentiful and obvious thing Not at all hard to understand. Then, after twenty, it became At once more difficult to get And more desired - though all the same More undesirable; for what You are alone has, to achieve The rank of fact, to be expressed In terms of others, or it's just A compensating make-believe. Much better stay in company! To love you must have someone else, Giving requires a legatee, Good neighbours need whole parishfuls Of folk to do it on - in short, Our virtues are all social; if, Deprived of solitude, you chafe, It's clear you're not the virtuous sort. Viciously, then, I lock my door. The gas-fire breathes. The wind outside Ushers in evening rain. Once more Uncontradicting solitude Supports me on its giant palm; And like a sea-anemone Or simple snail, there cautiously Unfolds, emerges, what I am.
The idea of "uncontradicting" solitude's "giant palm"--so wonderful. Not that being contradicted is something to be avoided in every arena of life, but it's always interesting--and weird--how often people try to direct other people's time and creativity in particular directions . . . .. So glad to know this poem.
There are a couple of lines here (the gas-fire breathes; virtue is social) that he would use again twenty years later in Vers de Societe - a simultaneously more funny and much darker poem about solitude: in older age, solitude tips over into loneliness and fear of mortality. I love that here though, he relishes in being alone, to just be himself, slowly unfolding.
Thank you for sharing.