“ I didn't want to die - not before I'd finished reading The Return of the Native anyhow. ”
Mute in that golden silence hung with green,Come down from heaven and bring me in your eyesRemembrance of all beauty that has been,And stillness from the pools of Paradise.
~ Siegfried Sassoon
But I've grown thoughtful now. And you have lost Your early-morning freshness of surprise At being so utterly mine: you've learned to fear The gloomy, stricken places in my soul, And the occasional ghosts that haunt my gaze.
Phantoms of thought and memory thinned and fled.
I did not dread the dark winter as people do when they have lost their youth and live alone in some great city.
