Into The Light Poem by David Lewis Paget

When I was a great deal younger than today, and first embarked on a life devoted to poetry, I made a decision to write a one verse poem every ten years, starting at the age of 21. This was to reflect the way I felt at the time, in relation to my life, and to my writing. The following is the verse written for the age of seventy-one, and below that the complete verses that built up to this point. The collection is called…

Into the Light

VI

Here I am, seventy-one
They say that only the good die young,
I’ve made the most of my current plight
To find dark corners, to sit and write,
The Chinese taught me their own folk lore
And Poe his raven, above the door,
So now I’ve written a thousand tales
Of shifting time and of dragon’s scales
While things I thought that would bring undone
Before the age of seventy-one
Have left me sat in my garret webs
To pen the last, to the final dregs,
I know where to head, the time is right,
Out of the darkness
Into the light.

David Lewis Paget

23 November 2015

- I -

Here I am, twenty-one,
So many things have to be done,
Many’s the cause I’ll be fighting for
Keeping the vows that I’ve sworn before,
How many children blessing my way,
How much love can a lover sway,
How many words can I write and read
In the years ahead for my restless need,
Where am I headed, this fateful night…
Out of the darkness
Into the light!

- II -

Here I am, thirty-one,
So many things still to be done;
Where are the causes? Fought and lost!
What of the vows? Tempest tossed!
Where are the children? Left behind!
What of the lovers? Love is blind!
How many words have you written and read?
Much too much for this aching head.
Where are you headed, this fateful night?
Out of the darkness
Into the light!

- III -

Here I am, forty-one,
And all life seems like a dream undone.
Everything I would have taken for me
Has slipped from my grasp, forsaken me.
All my children are grown, but one
And wonder; ‘Where did this man come from?
What was the pact that he kept with me…’
While I have nothing to answer thee.
All my words as a mist, widespread
Have since dispersed from a source long dead.
Where am I headed, this fateful night?
(Have you learned nothing….?)
I guess you’re right!

- IV -

Here I am, fifty-one,
The daylight fades and the muse has gone.
The loves I loved as my vision bled
All turned from me, and to them, I’m dead.
The rhyme was lost and the music died
As I turned to stone in my heart, inside.
Where is the youth that yearned to write
Through the endless days to the latest night?
Is this what happens, the years take flight –
Into the darkness
Out of the light.

- V -

Here I am, sixty-one,
I thought the end would have come and gone!
But then a light seemed to beckon me
To trip through another’s history.
When China called, I know not why
I saw new future’s I’d never tried,
The way was clear, my life was spent
So I fetched up in the Orient.
With all its bustle, its pomp, and pride,
I picked up the pen that I’d put aside,
For black-haired girls feed my heart’s content
And children like jewels are heaven sent;
Is this the future, I know it’s right....
Out of the darkness
Into the light!

23 November 2015