O let my Old Age be Mellow
Thou art to soul as sleep is to my strife,
The cheeks when look neither rosy nor full,
Lips red, nor knees so supple of a mule,
The flesh when falters, wrinkles getting rife,
In feeble frame and grey forgetting brain,
And mind’s will that can far from firm remain.
So, come, O Death, like lingering night's sleep,
Come to me cool and smooth like a winter,
Or golden yellow of a soft summer,
For a soul that has lived full, well and deep,
To whom life seems like a day's work well done,
A night's rest well-earned to face morrow's sun.
In glimmering sunset's withering glow,
O let my old age be somewhat mellow.
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Sonnet |03.01.2008| life, death, old age
Poet’s note: Childhood being a period of innocence is by and large quite blissful. The old age also can be quite so if it is truly treated as a second childhood. Life and death are equal journeys as death happens right from birth— why this sonnet is equally divided in two sestets followed by a couplet.
Copyright ©
Aniruddha Pathak
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