Before The Sun Sets

Pen & Wash Sketch – based on ‘Ancient Trees’ – to mark National Trust Week 1999 . . .  WHB

The crisp crunch of my footsteps as I crossed that frosty field
Confirmed to me the joy that winter brings;
The frail but wondrous sunlight burning through the morning mist
Affirmed a world of wonder in all things.

It brought to me a memory of those long days of my youth,
When all was young and all life was tomorrow,
When time and love and right and wrong were not things I considered,
Just the lasting joy which Nature can bestow.

Tomorrow was a world away from the life that I live now;
No anguish that my world might cease to be
Before I’d felt and savoured all that life can have to offer,
Before the sun sets on that ancient tree.

Despite my knowledge of the pain that’s in the world around me,
Bleak Nature seeks to calm its shifting shadows,
The seasons, sun, the starlight, still remain to bring us hope,
That vital spark from which renewed life flows.

On Ageing Disgracefully – Reprise

[ Wednesday Replay # 3 ] 

[  First posted on  August 23, 2016  ]

‘Age I do abhor thee’

Whilst the following rhyming couplets in no way describe my own experience of encroaching dotage, the verses are my attempt to express a view of the feelings and needs of a ‘grumpy old man’ contemplating his future, isolated by senility from his nearest and dearest.

These thoughts were generated by a re-reading of the madrigal verses, ‘Crabbed age and Youth’, attributed to Shakespeare, coupled with watching again an episode of Victor Meldrew’s character in the TV comedy, ‘One foot in the Grave’.

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CRABBED AGE

(On Ageing Disgracefully)

So who can we say will look after us
When we get old and cantankerous?

Can we rely on those near and dear? 
Or are we forsaken, alone in our fear?

We who were once so unstinting and kind
Do we not earn at last true peace of mind?

BUT . . .

All is not clear . . . To be truly sincere, 
The man I was then is no longer here.

FOR . . .

I’ve changed, and not for the better 
I’ve lost it now – down to the letter.

No one can know the way I now feel. 
I’ve got the worst of Faust’s done deal.

Bad-tempered with age; rancorous, unkind,
Left, with my youth, all my humour behind.

My bilious mien, my irascible stance 
Will never win friends or my nature enhance.

I’m old now and weary and decidedly bent 
My spirit and mind to perdition I’ve sent.

Choleric, petty, liverish, sickly, 
A curmudgeon, malcontent, surly and prickly.

I’m grumpy, I know, and I’m sad.
I’m thoughtless and tetchy and bad.

I’m full of regret and I hurt,
Bombastic and bitter and curt.

I know when I’m right, but not when I’m wrong,
I know where I live, not where I belong.

Selfish, caustic, hurtful, snide,
This present-day world I cannot abide.

My life is defiled, and I’m full of bile;
A fossilised drone, sterile and vile.

NEVERTHELESS . . .

I need you beside me all the day long.
Don’t tell me you’re tired – I know that you’re wrong.

I remember those vows that we once affirmed 
When the future was all that you and I yearned.

But I’m near to the end, so I’m taking a bow,
Who once was your soul-mate Is only a shell now.

The love that once held you so closely to me
Has gone since I’ve grown to be bitchy and gloomy

I know that you don’t want to stay any longer 
I’m just in your way now, it’s you who is stronger.

I’d hoped I could ask you to restore my dreams 
But time has dealt us its last blow it seems.

SO . . .

I relinquish my hold, and consign all my sorrows 
To a life that defeats me – and all our tomorrows.

 

The illustrations are from the Irish illustrator, Harry Clarke’s, 1921 edition of Goethe’s ‘FAUST’.

NEXT WEEK . . .  ‘On Ageing Gloriously’ !!!