The poets die like flies but I am lying slightly to one side, Contented in my Spain or Siam, content too to keep my hide. How well they wrote, those friends now fettered, how the Indo-Anglian tongue Allowed them to be lovely-lettered, their lives lived when the world was young. I’ll live and hold my words in, for I am wearied of hypothesis; And, in place of getting glory, kisses take from my missis. Then the world shone, by their showing; then publishers seemed to care; Then calls for cheques of last year’s owing did not fall on empty air. Then newspapers asked them for pieces; and printed them unchanged; and paid; But now there are so many wheezes which make the craft a thrifty trade. In a wilder whirl of weeklies, tabloids titting on page threes, I will shirk my duty meekly and kisses take from my missis. They did not care much what the world said: they taught it instead how to speak. They did not, when a poem pleaded, to meetings go in Mozambique. But I will stay my poems, spending strength now with a shriller pen My theme and language both defending, to live fourscore years and ten. And if it prove my prime is over, if I’ve no chance at wordly bliss Why I will spurn so false a lover and kisses take from my missis. This hand once penned those poems: never shall I find so true a friend. I’ve a thirst for all forever, but the lines come to an end. So Arun and Dom and Nissim – I will shun their hard-earned grief And much though I will always miss ’em, in softer shadows find relief. And when I’m ninety and young writers ask why I wrote no more than this I will answer, “But, you blighters! I kisses took from my missis.”