My body has served my faithfully for more than eighty years
but I am as old as the hills and as young as springtime.
Since reaching the age of discretion
I have served the Mother Goddess
as well as learning and circumstances have allowed,
and am Pagan, and Brother to Dragons
and Companion of Owls.

I have been seaman, engineer and railwayman,
I have begotten children, planted trees and cultivated gardens
to feed me and mine, I have written prose and verse,
I have been pupil and teacher, and have taught and learned
from those who would listen to me.

I have risen out of my sleeping body to walk unseen
beneath the white moon, reluctantly to return to its sorrows
and delights when its needs recalled me.
One day it will recall me no more, and I shall be free to return
to the Summerlands whence I came,
where my erstwhile companions await me.