Kingsley Amis Biography

That cold winter evening
The fire would not draw,
And the whole family hung
Over the dismal grate
...

Things tell less and less:
The news impersonal
And from afar; no book
Worth wrenching off the shelf.
...

Between the Gardening and the Cookery
Comes the brief Poetry shelf;
By the Nonesuch Donne, a thin anthology
Offers itself.
...

Do this. Don't move. O'Grady says do this,
You get a move on, see, do what I say.
Look lively when I say O'Grady says.
...

See her come bearing down, a tidy craft!
Gaily her topsails bulge, her sidelights burn!
There's jigging in her rigging fore and aft,
And beauty's self, not name, limned on her stern.
...