Today is the third anniversary of the death of Benjamin Raymond, my grandson, who died at the age of twenty, alone, suddenly and violently, in a car accident.
I cannot think that you have gone away.
You loved the earth – and light lit up your eyes,
And flickered in your smile that would surmise
Death as a song, a poem or a play.
You were reborn afresh with every day,
And baffled fortune in some new disguise.
Ah! can it perish when the body dies,
Such youth, such love, such passion to be gay?
We shall not see you come to us and leave
A conqueror – nor catch on fairy wing
Some slender fancy – nor new wonders weave
Upon the loom of your imagining.
The world is wearier, grown dark to grieve
A child that was a pilgrim and a king.
Winifred Holtby (1898 - 1935)
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5 comments:
Jude, What a beautiful poem. The lose of a child or even worse a grandchild goes against nature. It's we in the older generation who are supposed to leave the field to the young. You have my deepest sympathy.
erp, thank you for your condolence and your info.
How I cope - I keep telling myself:
'For to fear death...is simply to think we are wise when we are not so; it is to think we know what we know not. No man knows whether death is not the greatest of all goods that can come to man; and yet men fear it as though they know it was the greatest of all ills.' Plato
'Only the good die young.'
This is a bit flippant, but accurate for me.
"I don't fear death, I fear the dying part" Woody Allen
Jude, I think you can purge your blog by deleting these comments a second time.
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