Best Society

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