Golden Friends

PATRICK J. WOOD, PUBLISHER

Author of “Reflections” a new book now available on Amazon.

Dear Reader,

A. E. Housman wrote eloquently of youth and time’s swift passage in his well-known poem, “With Rue My Heart Is Laden.”

With rue my heart is laden

For golden friends I had,

For many a rose-lipt maiden

And many a lightfoot lad.

By brooks too broad for leaping

The lightfoot boys are laid;

The rose-lipt girls are sleeping

In fields where roses fade.

This poem expresses so poignantly the thoughts and feelings that come as your friends slip away, one by one.

Those cherished companions are now gone, like lads in that poignant verse, “by brooks too broad for leaping.”

The lightfoot boys and rose-lipped maidens of my youth now sleep where roses grow. We never imagined our time together would end. Yet now they are laid to rest, their voices silent but for echoes in memory. Alas!

In remembering them, something of those golden times remains, yet tinged with sadness. This is the way of things in this temporary home we inhabit for a time that seems shorter and shorter.