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.
End of the poem
15 random poems
- Виктор Гончаров – Не знаю, что делать с душою
- Николай Гумилев – За стенами старого аббатства
- Paris, Translation of Paul Verlaine’s poem: Paris by T. Wignesan.
- The (REAL) Tale of the Tortoise and the Hare by Ross D Tyler
- To a woman, Translation of Paul Verlaine’s sonnet: A une femme by T. Wignesan.
- Cry of the Betrayed Earth by Walter William Safar
- The Alien poem – Aldous Huxley poems | Poetry Monster
- A Gift poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Николай Языков – Девятое мая
- On Wenlock Edge The Wood’s In Trouble poem – A. E. Housman
- Олег Бундур – Нарасхват
- Purple Heart Liz (My Girl At Woodstock) by Steve Sant
- Tartary by Walter de la Mare
- Владимир Бенедиктов – С могучей страстию в мучительной борьбе
- Юрий Левитанский – Что я знаю про стороны света
Some external links:
Duckduckgo.com – the alternative in the US
Quant.com – a search engine from France, and also an alternative, at least for Europe
Yandex – the Russian search engine (it’s probably the best search engine for image searches).
Philip Arthur Larkin (1922-1985), Commander of the Order of the British Empire, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, Cavalier of the Order of the Companions of Honour, was an English poet, novelist, and librarian.