The Lantern
Your heart sags wrinkled now
Old and grey before its time
Ravages shown in bandy legs
A heavy toll of frost and rime
Tarry not till your heart is old
Make hay afore night descends
Time rips fast and none knows
When life sinks low and ends
Once your heart was fanciful
Joys were the order of the day
Now its an armchair and pills
Listening to what doctors say
Tarry not till your heart is old
Make hay afore night descends
Time rips fast and none knows
When life sinks low and ends
You had a wife, and lovers too
Sins so easy to remember now
Remorse twists amid your soul
Furrows plough that aged brow
Tarry not till your heart is old
Make hay afore night descends
Time rips fast and none knows
When life sinks low and ends
Is that a lantern at the casement?
A hooded figure points the way
You shudder, that old heart stops
Nevermore to beat another day
Tarry not till your heart is old
Make hay afore night descends
Time rips fast and none knows
When life sinks low and ends
John Coopey
Sat 10th Oct 2020 09:40
Enjoyed this, Simon. “Do not go gently” meets “To his coy mistress”. Not long before he died my sister asked my dad if he’d any regrets in his life. “I wish I’d made love to more women” he said. True wisdom.