Into the Light

A ten yearly look at my life....

Here I am, twenty-one,

So many things have to be done,

Many’s the cause I’ll be fighting for

Keeping the vows that I’ve sworn before,

How many children blessing my way,

How much love can a lover sway,

How many words can I write and read

In the years ahead for my restless need,

Where am I headed, this fateful night…

             Out of the darkness

                  Into the light!

 

                     - II -

 

Here I am, thirty-one,

So many things still to be done;

Where are the causes? Fought and lost!

What of the vows? Tempest tossed!

Where are the children? Left behind!

What of the lovers? Love is blind!

How many words have you written and read?

Much too much for this aching head.

Where are you headed, this fateful night?

             Out of the darkness

                   Into the light!

 

                    - III -

 

Here I am, forty-one,

And all life seems like a dream undone.

Everything I would have taken for me

Has slipped from my grasp, forsaken me.

All my children are grown, but one

And wonder; ‘Where did this man come from?

What was the pact that he kept with me…’

While I have nothing to answer thee.

All my words as a mist, widespread

Have since dispersed from a source long dead.

Where am I headed, this fateful night?

           (Have you learned nothing….?)

                I guess you’re right!

 

                - IV -

 

Here I am, fifty-one,

The daylight fades and the muse has gone.

The loves I loved as my vision bled

All turned from me, and to them, I’m dead.

The rhyme was lost and the music died

As I turned to stone in my heart, inside.

Where is the youth that yearned to write

Through the endless days to the latest night?

Is this what happens, the years take flight "

             Into the darkness

                 Out of the light.

 

                  - V -

 

Here I am, sixty-one,

I thought the end would have come and gone!

But then a light seemed to beckon me

To trip through another’s history.

When China called, I know not why

I saw new future’s I’d never tried,

The way was clear, my life was spent

So I fetched up in the Orient.

With all its bustle, its pomp, and pride,

I picked up the pen that I’d put aside,

For black-haired girls feed my heart’s content

And children like jewels are heaven sent;

Is this the future, I know it’s right....

Out of the darkness

      Into the light!

 

David Lewis Paget

Author's Note

I wrote these verses at ten yearly intervals - will probably add a final one in 2015, if I make it?