But Once Poem by Richard Trembath

Softness, grace, and beauty,
Peace,
Where have they gone?

Where are the days of yesterday,
The happy carefree days
Of laughter,
Hopes and joy,
The brief tranquillity
Once almost captured
Yet lot slip, and lost
And ne'er revisited?

Yes, what is gone is truly gone
And yesterday is over
And its joy (if there was joy)
Is just a memory.
We know within us
oft' we say we shall return,
‘Next time', we say,
But next time never comes.

We get one chance alone
And each one lost is gone
And, ne'er can be regained,
But each one held, and
Savoured, be it oh so brief
Is beauty, truth, unblemished gold,
A crystal moment of magnificence,
Perfection,
And an insight
Brief, provided into what
Makes this life so.

We must live now, while life is here
And full and bursting forth to bloom,
For all too soon today
Is yesterday
And love, and life—
The chance to live—
Has passed us by.


So grasp, and hold
And live life now,
Not ‘next time'
For those words belong
To cowards, they
Who let
Life's river flow on by
And ne'er become a part of it
And hide from life, to get it
Over with.

But truth is here, somewhere
Amidst the mire,
Peace, tranquillity,
Beyond the throng,
The noise, the cold
Hard world that hems us in,
Oppresses us where're we look.
Beauty comes,
Not often,
But it comes.


But we too oft' ignore it
And make not
The most of these, our opportunities,
Our share of life's true nature
We avoid, side-step them
Or, worse still, we fail
To recognise them, so intent
Are we
On following the narrow paths
Of daily life.

To each shall come
The vision, clarity of sight
To recognise if only once,
The beauty, and the soaring heights
Of Joy that this world holds,
But when passed by, each moment wasted
Goes,
And, having gone,
Is lost beyond recall, unlived
And shall not come again


And some lives pass
Unlived
From dust, through flesh and life,
To dust,
Unknowing what life holds
Beyond their clouded field
Of vision,
Never knowing beauty, truth or peace
And never knowing love.

He is no man, the man
Who passes by this way
With head held low, and
Mind
Ne'er asking ‘What is this life
All about? '
He breathes, he walks, he talks
Yet leaves no mark of having
Passed,
Or having lived at all.

I shall not go this way, for I
Shall have but this
One life,
And I shall, from this day,
Seek all these things that go
To make the essence
Of this life
And I shall live
Each moment for itself
And life
Shall not elude me.