Lessons of Darkness

As the days grow shorter, and the dark hours lengthen, I don't feel everything he expresses, but I sure do feel some of it.

Here's a sad poem by Clive James:

Leçons De Ténèbres  ( Lessons of Darkness)

 By Clive James

 

But are they lessons, all these things I learn

 Through being so far gone in my decline?

 The wages of experience I earn

 Would service well a younger life than mine.

 I should have been more kind. It is my fate

 To find this out, but find it out too late.

 

The mirror holds the ruins of my face

 Roughly together, thus reminding me

 I should have played it straight in every case,

 Not just when forced to. Far too casually

 I broke faith when it suited me, and here

 I am alone, and now the end is near.

 

All of my life I put my labour first.

 I made my mark, but left no time between

 The things achieved, so, at my heedless worst,

 With no life, there was nothing I could mean.

 But now I have slowed down. I breathe the air

 As if there were not much more of it there

 

And write these poems, which are funeral songs

 That have been taught to me by vanished time:

 Not only to enumerate my wrongs

 But to pay homage to the late sublime

 That comes with seeing how the years have brought

 A fitting end, if not the one I sought.