Best Society - 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.