The Old Times

An old man tries reminiscing his past and doesn’t remember much. Sad and lost, he turns to his wife…

Oh dear, how old I have grown!
So old that my memories seem a distant brown,
A brown which I can’t tell from grey,
Am I, now, the white-haired ghost treading in death’s way?

Poor me, I was not then able of self-pity,
Time does change you a lot, makes you gritty,
I dearly want to see how my time went, and
Know whether upon your love or my sorrow my mind was bent.

Alas! Like the winter eats the glory of many creeds,
Only to give back, after much affliction, newer seeds,
I shall have to be reborn, of a newer soul,
And build upon fresher joys and sorrow, bearing life’s toll.

Oh! Is that the only way left at my disposal?
I dearly want those old times, I’ve forgotten even my proposal!
I am not able to reminisce them, a lock without a key,
But filled with your love, laughter and other magic, they must be!

Even though I remember nothing from the bygone days,
And I have married melancholy over these mental frays,
There’s one worry deep inside me, one woe,
That shakes up disquiet in me like a storm rocks a canoe-

-How long will I remember you? How long, love?
Gone are those days I spent with you, dove,
With them my memories too have fled.
But I still feel your love, much like warm blood.

Will that love, which still kindles the weak winter sun that my heart is,
Turn into a lullaby that will sing my soul to death’s premise?
My will has gone someplace, aye, and the shadows near,
Your love is all I have left my dearest dear.

Melancholy, 1894 by Edvard Munch