Arnold was wrong to say the old
feel no emotion, None!
They feel, but not perhaps the joy
which Coleridge said he lost
when still quite young.
And the release which Sophocles
was said to enjoy when old,
fails rarely to apply.
Release from mad masters
brings not joy but melancholy,
regret and fear, anxiety,
awareness of the loss of beauty,
loss of strength and confidence
now known to have been misplaced.
Some few retain capacity
to give, create, communicate
but the gifted seem too few.
Admiration mixed with envy
defeats excitement felt in youth.
What creates emotion now is truth.
Ageing 2
I am astonished, yes astonished
to be told, and feel I am old.
It has only just occurred to me
that these echoes in the head
which have recurred for years,
for many years, will never
stop till I stop too. No
refreshment of the flesh will ever
render me my youth, the joy
I felt as a boy.
Pain will link arms with me,
as poets have sometimes said,
down the road ahead.
©Terry Hodgson2020
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