FAREWELL MAYNE

It’s a place of summer sunshine,

Of restless wind and tide.

Beyond the rocky shore,

Squalling seabirds glide.

A tiny cabin nestles

Among the soaring firs,

A home away from home,

Recalled my full heart stirs.

Peace and quiet reign,

Urban clamour far away,

No surging crowds or traffic,

Just children at their play.

Island life is now behind me.

It was pure and simple joy.

But fate has intervened.

I dare not with fortune toy.

So farewell seductive Mayne.

I’ll ne’er visit you again.

Memories of your charms

Will until I die remain!

OUT OF CONTROL

How much do we control the courses of our lives?

I’m persuaded not at all; we go where fortune drives.

We have no word to say about where we are born,

Whether rich or poor, loved, cared for or forlorn…

What talents we may have, if full of health and zest,

Or feeble and afflicted, no match for any test.

Every incident of the day affects us, good or ill.

We respond as we must, no real thought or will.

Our freedom’s an illusion. We are cogs in a machine

Spinning aimless in the void, a vast eternal scene.