Age Seldom Arrives Smoothly Or

I Watched Her Die Many Times. In My Way, Not In Hers. In Sunlight, In Shadow, By Moonlight, By Candlelight. In The Long Afternoons When The House Was Empty. Only The Sun Was There To Keep Us Company. We Shut Him Out. And Why Not? Very Soon She Was As Eager For What's Called Loving As I Was - More Lost And Drowned Afterwards.

Every Word I Say Has Chains Round Its Ankles; Every Thought I Think Is Weighted With Heavy Weights. Since I Was Born, Hasn't Every Word I've Said, Every Thought I've Thought, Everything I've Done, Been Tied Up, Weighted, Chained? And Mind You, I Know That With All This I Don't Succeed. Or I Succeed In Flashes Only Too Damned Well. ...but Think How Hard I Try And How Seldom I Dare. Think - And Have A Bit Of Pity. That Is, If You Ever Think, You Apes, Which I Doubt.

Very Few People Change After Well Say Seven Or Seventeen. Not Really. They Get More This Or More That And Of Course Look A Bit Different. But Inside They Are The Same.

For The First Time She Had Dimly Realized That Only The Hopeless Are Starkly Sincere And That Only The Unhappy Can Either Give Or Take Sympathy--even Some Of The Bitter And Dangerous Voluptuousness Of Misery.

Blot Out The Moon, Pull Down The Stars. Love In The Dark, For We're For The Dark So Soon, So Soon.