18 JULY 1987, Page 33

How Long is a Day?

(For John Joubert, on 20th March, 1987)

A day is a long time For a child of two or three; From breakfast-time to lunch Is an eternity.

At six, he still may find The day too long — a hell Of boredom through which He waits for the school bell; At home, though, he gets lost In a paradise of play: A day is then more like A season than a day.

His hill-climbing elders Curse time, but have no power To slow it down: for them A day is more like an hour.

Until — at sixty, say — They see, without pain, Each hour a greater fraction Of the years that still remain; Eternity drifts back; The hills stop calling 'Climb!', And once again, in a sense, A day is a long time.

Edward Lowbury