The Ashes of Youth

Sonnet 73

William Shakespeare

That time of year thou mayst in me behold,
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang;
In me thou seest the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self that seals up all in rest;
In me thou seest the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the deathbed whereon it must expire,
Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by;
This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonnet_73


What a short time we have to spend with the people we love.  The sunset picture was taken on an island, during our travelling years, so a long time ago.  My own sunset years are nothing like as beautiful and dramatic, but more of a slow undignified slide, on a slope that is getting steeper and steeper.

But then the sun was made to rise and set - and we see perfection in every sunrise and sunset - and, such is the variety of Jehovah's creation, we never see the same one twice.  In contrast, we were made to live forever - but damaged and dying as we are now, we do not. And it is not pretty.  It's painful.  And not at all like the beautiful Maldivian sunset above.

Had a short Zoom visit to my new field service group on Saturday morning.  I am finding chatting in Zoom harder and harder now - unless it's one to one, which I can still just about do.   Col was out all day a'detecting in the rain, but was at home on Sunday, so I made a big effort and got to the Hall - by chauffeur. Mornings are so difficult now - and I have always been a morning person too!

I have noticed an interesting thing, that when I can get to the meetings my blood pressure is much lower.  (I am taking some measurements for my GP at the moment.)

And the root canal scheduled for Monday should put the bp up to machine-shattering proportions.  At any rate, it seems to have been done successfully - and I now have another long appointment to go through to get the post and crown fitted. I am hoping though there will not be as much drilling.

Hopefully he has done a very good job in that I have taken basic paracetamol doses - two yesterday and will take a couple more this morning, and no pain at all from the area of the tooth. The only problem is that everything else is sore, as spending all that time clenched up in the dentist's chair has not done the rest of my decrepit body any good.

However, I don't suppose his drilling away all my nerves while I was up  there would have been at all a good idea.

I am whinging away here, yet the world news is almost unspeakable in its horror.  The level of Epstein corruption seems to be spreading - with a headlines I cannot bear to read beyond...   

Surely the failure of human government must be evident by now?  So can that lead more and more of us, the damaged children of Adam, to come to find and serve the perfect government, the Kingdom of God.

Because the gift of life is so precious, so wonderful, so interesting - the planet earth is so lovely - and the universe in which we float is immense and beautiful beyond our comprehension.  Why would we ever want to leave it?