12 NOVEMBER 2005, Page 29

The Poet’s Voice

In an Oxford studio Fifty-one years ago This light-voiced, confident, Uppity, arrogant Person who was me Intoned for posterity These verses. Unbelievably, Years afterwards, much less Confident, my voice a mess, I sit back, surprisingly Glad still to be Able to move about, Even able to shout ‘You smug bugger!’ to the prig Who, creepily acting big, Recorded this deathless verse.

Well, it could have been worse: This antique disc will pass on, Scratched as, one by one, People switch on to the past And so make it last.

So my poems, spoken by me, Intoned for posterity, Fifty-one years ago And I never meant it so Will in some sense survive, Keeping me alive, Though in that studio So many years ago I never quite meant it so.

Anthony Thwaite