When You are old

I spent some time in care homes this morning, visiting those who can't get out to church any more.

It's amazing how we regress into childlikeness as we age and draw near our own death. We get to the place where these bodies that have carried babies in them, and done hard work on farms, and have travelled and read hundreds of books with deep thoughts in them, eventually need someone to feed them and change them.

We who are so strong, in the end, need somebody strong to carry us Home. 

 

When You Are Old
by William Butler Yeats

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmer, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.