the_libertine louis macniece In the old days with married women’s stockings Twisted round his bedpost he felt himself a gay Dog but now his liver has begun to groan, Now that pick-ups are the order of the day: O leave me easy, leave me alone. Voluptuary in his ‘teens and cynic in his twenties, He ran through women like a child through growing hay Looking for a lost toy whose capture might atone For his own guilt and the cosmic disarray: O leave me easy, leave me alone. He never found the toy and has forgotten the faces, Only remembers the props... a scent-spray Beside the bed or a milk-white telephone Or through the triple ninon the acrid trickle of day: O leave me easy, leave me alone. Long fingers over the gunwale, hair in a hair-net, Furs in January, cartwheel hats in may, And after the event the wish to be alone - Angels, goddesses, bitches, all have edged away: O leave me easy, leave me alone. So now, in middle age, his erotic programme Torn in two, if after such a delay An accident should offer him his own Fulfillment in a woman, still he would say: O leave me easy, leave me alone. 050701 what's it to you? who go blather from