Apologia

All my life was laid to waste the

Night I wrote to you in haste, unseeing

In the spell of what was best,

But sorrow and a wild regret will

Never change the wisdom of it, wisdom

That will bring me little rest.

 

But have you heard yourself say no to the

Very thing you wanted so, and

Knowing it would only bring you scorn.

But powerless to step aside for the

Very thing you sought to hide

Was written-in the day that you were born.

 

The victims of an astral game where

Cruel adds are put to shame and

Life and love are cheap among the stakes,

The roulette wheel will clatter on, upsetting

Men when we are gone, another player

Cries as he awakes.

 

So ours is just to reminisce those memories

That brought us bliss, and nevermore

To see them come again,

To think back on those holy days, before

We went our separate ways, and so

Discovered how to suffer pain.

 

The truth is but the blackest lie when heeding

Truth can make you cry, so say goodbye

To truth and try to smile,

Do you recall, of course you do, the day that

One was made of two, the day we tried

Our conscience to beguile.

 

We should have halted, there and then, but we

Just carried on again and shut our eyes

To consequence and such,

The days were filled with sheer delight, the

Nights were pools of candlelight, and half

Our world of sense was that of touch.

 

The clowning in the parks and greens, the

Happiness, the stormy scenes when

Everything was vital to the plot,

The times you shed those bitter tears will

Turn and haunt me through the years, as like as

Will your love, as like as not.

 

As once we journeyed to the tip, in fun

And for the hell of it, to scavenge

Anything we saw of note,

We journey now the road apart and

Bleed a little from the heart, reciting

All we were, as if by rote.

 

And now I lie awake at night recalling

Your sweet face to sight, reliving

All the best I found in you,

Your patience with my way-out schemes,

Ill tempers, and fantastic dreams, and

Always loving, honest, good and true.

 

It may be that this mortal span is

Just enough to cripple man and

Smash him down in fortune's stinging rack,

But were I offered any more, in hell

Or heaven, peace or war, I’d use it all

To give your loving back.

 

David Lewis Paget