29 NOVEMBER 1963, Page 11

Middle Age

When we were young, it seemed that happiness Would come when we had reached to man's estate, And joy and hope conjoined would consummate Our triumph over childhood's long duress.

But disenchantment middle years confess; Our later griefs such early dreams frustrate; And finding the present ever desolate Childhood's short spring our memories caress.

But this, too, is illusion, to portray In gold our future refuge or our past, Finding no happiness at all today, Seeing the zenith always overcast, Till, at the end, we hear dark Azrael say: 'Be this a happy day. It is your last.'