Poetry: against your better judgment

Since the majority of me
Rejects the majority of you,
Debating ends forthwith, and we
Divide. And sure of what to do

We disinfect new blocks of days
For our majorities to rent
With unshared friends and unwalked ways.
But silence too is eloquent:

A silence of majorities
That, unopposed at last, return
Each night with cancelled promises
They want renewed. They never learn.

- Philip Larkin, ‘Since the majority of me’ (6 December 1950)