When I look back on other years
As I so often do
I see them through a mist of tears
Yet clear and true
They come to me and cast their spells
Like echoes, heard amongst my native lakes and fells
Each spoken word
The gesture of arm, turn of a head
Recalls again,
A long forgotten joy, or tears I've shed
Pleasure, or pain?
It's hard to tell the difference now
Whilst pensive mood
Makes bygone times seem sad somehow
And ghosts intrude

As pictures on a silent moving screen
Pass to and fro
Before my inward eye, each form, each scene
Will come and go
As actors do across a darkening stage
Enter and speak, and leave
And enter once again as turns the story's page
Their tale to weave
And then I bid them all farewell at last
Their voices hushed
And they all vanish in the misty past