Many years ago when I was in high school and studying Latin, I came across a Roman general named Scipio Africanis, He earned that name because he had won many battles in Africa. He was a philosopher as well as a military man, and he took on a motto that caught my fancy and has been my own motto ever since. He said, in Latin of course, “Nunquam minus solis quam cum solis”, meaning that you are “never less alone than when alone.” Alone but not lonely.
We are speaking here of an affirmative solitude that poets cherish, because in reality, most people who are alone are not so by choice but by circumstance. In this column we visit poets who see solitude as an act of good fortune.
There have been some quite lovely poems written about the joys of being alone. Alexander Pope set a standard in his “Ode to Solitude.”
Happy the man, whose wish and care
Few paternal acres bound,
Content to breathe his native air,
In his own ground.
Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread,
Whose flocks supply him with attire,
Whose trees in summer yield him shade,
In winter fire.
Blest, who can unconcernedly find
Hours, days, and years slide soft away,
In health of body, peace of mind,
Quiet by day,
Sound sleep by night; study and ease,
Together mixed; sweet recreation;
With meditation.
Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;
Thus unlamented let me die;
Steal from the world, and not a stone
Tell where I lie.
Pope’s poem suggests years of philosophical meditation. Actually, he wrote it when he was twelve.
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Among modern poets, D.H. Lawrence especially embraced solitude and often wandered forth from his ranch home in Taos, New Mexico.
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Lawrence wrote:
I know no greater delight than the sheer delight of being alone.
It makes me realize the delicious pleasure of the moon
that she has in travelling by herself: throughout time,
or the splendid growing of an ash-tree
alone, on a hillside in the north, humming in the wind.
Be alone, and feel the trees silently growing.
Be alone, and see the moonlight outside, white and busy and
silent.
Be quite alone, and feel the living cosmos softly rocking,
soothing and restoring and healing.
Soothed, restored and healed
when I am alone with the silent great cosmos,
and there is no grating of people with their presences gnawing
at the stillness of the air.
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One of the frequent uses of solitude has been as a sanctuary, and it’s a practice that starts early in life. A.A. Milne and his illustrator, Ernest H. Shepard, knew all about it, as did every child’s friend, Christopher Robin.
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The pleasures of poetic solitude can take many forms. For William Butler Yeats it was to build a cabin in the country and commune with nature. This is called “The Lake Isle of Innisfree.”
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.
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For William Carlos Williams, the joy of solitude might lead to a Russian dance
If I when my wife is sleeping
and the baby and Kathleen
are sleeping
and the sun is a flame-white disc
in silken mists
above shining trees, —
if I in my north room
dance naked, grotesquely
before my mirror
waving my shirt round my head
and singing softly to myself:
“I am lonely, lonely.
I was born to be lonely,
I am best so!”
If I admire my arms, my face,
my shoulders, flanks, buttocks
against the yellow drawn shades, —
Who shall say I am not
the happy genius of my household?
Who indeed!
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Among the greats, John Keats’ very first published poem, a sonnet (1816), found that solitude was a pathway from city to countryside.
O Solitude! if I must with thee dwell,
Let it not be among the jumbled heap
Of murky buildings: climb with me the steep,—
Nature’s observatory—whence the dell,
In flowery slopes, its river’s crystal swell,
May seem a span; let me thy vigils keep
‘Mongst boughs pavilioned, where the deer’s swift leap
Startles the wild bee from the foxglove bell.
But though I’ll gladly trace these scenes with thee,
Yet the sweet converse of an innocent mind,
Whose words are images of thoughts refined,
Is my soul’s pleasure; and it sure must be
Almost the highest bliss of human-kind,
When to thy haunts two kindred spirits flee.
I have a little question here. If you share your venture with a kindred spirit, is it still solitudinous? Forgive me, but perhaps the answer lies in a charming song I’m reminded of from the 1920’s. It’s called “All Alone Monday.”
All alone Monday, singin’ the blues,
All alone Tuesday, readin’ the news,
Starin’ and blinkin,’
Sittin’ there, thinkin’ all alone.
On the shelf Wednesday, ’til the dawn comes,
By myself Thursday, twirlin’ my thumbs,
Friday is my day,
So I spend Friday all alone,
On Saturday I dread the coming of Sunday.
Monday, the week starts a-new.
I’m certain, I could endure the week to the end,
And I am sure the days that I spend
Wouldn’t be lonely, if I were only all alone
. . . with you!
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VIDEO. The distinguished British actor, Sir Simon Russell Beale, offers us the most famous of solitude poems, by William Wordsworth.
CLICK ON THIS LINK FOR VIDEO: THE DAFFODILS
