A Wish

Let me not see old age; let me not hear
The proffered help, the mumbled sympathy,
The well-meant tactful sophistries that mock
Pathetic husks, who once were strong and free
And in youth’s fickle triumph laughed and sang,
Loved and were foolish: and at the close have seen
The fruits of folly garnered, and that love,
Tamed and encaged, stale into grey routine.

Let me not see old age: I am content
With my few crowded years: laughter and strength
And song have lit the beacon of my life;
Let me not see it fade, but when the long
September shadows steal across the square,
Grant me this wish – they shall not find me there.

(D.R. Geraint Jones, who died of wounds in Normandy in June 1944 at the age of 22).

Bill Guy writes: I first read the above poem in my early 20s and empathised to some degree with its sentiment – after all, quitting at the top is recommended in many areas of life, so why not of life itself? More than 50 years later, my rather different perspective prompted me to write a rebuttal of Geraint Jones’s death wish and I read it at the Aldinga ExStanza branch’s last session on the theme of ‘Age’:

AGE NEED NOT WITHER

‘Let me not see old age,’ a poet once said.
Fearful of time’s corrosive force,
he could not face the sure decline,
the loss of grip, the fading powers.

Wizened wisdom with a pessimistic tinge
seemed a sad exchange for the untamed hopes
and optimistic leaps that gave cosmic scope
to his youthful philosophy and faith.

He could not contemplate without dismay
the diminished strength of mind and body
that is the inescapable penalty
for challenging the limits to life.

He should not have been so timorous.
Having long since crossed the boundary
into what he saw as an alien land,
I can catalogue its subtle benefits.

Old age gives time a new dimension;
now the clock no longer rules the day;
all schedules, deadlines and agendas
can be set to suit one’s inclination.

Each day becomes a gift to cherish
because it is one more day subtracted
from the total allocated to us by Fate
and therefore must not be squandered.

So, seeking richness in life, not riches,
becomes the goal and, freed from competition, the old now have expanded time and space
in which to savour joys the others only chase.

Thus, age need not be the feared descent
into the valley of cold, dank shadows;
instead, it offers an ascent to greet the sun
from the high peak of enriched experience.

But, note, three blessings will be required
to consummate this golden dream:
good friends, good fortune and good health – with these, the sting will be removed from death.