Costa Calida sun,
I hope we’re reunited,
Though I can’t say when,
I may see you again,

Costa Calida sun
Means memories romantic,
Of when that I was young,
Memories of Spain.

He had no insight into the mysteries
Of the gilded sports
Of the British social elite,
By the time he arrived at his beloved college,
Long, long ago in a long-forgotten England,

And in later years, when he looked back at his beloved college,
He'd insist if he possessed a single quality
That might be termed noble
He owed it to his education,
And not least the four years he spent there,

And there’d be times when certain pieces
Of quintessentially English pastoral music
Still had the power to evoke his strange and sudden flight,
While seeming to him to bespeak a passion
For the Arcadian soul of England that verged on the ecstatic,

And others when he’d dream of a day
He might return to the scene of his flight as if in atonement,
And commune with the soul of his beloved England,
With a passion verging on the ecstatic,
And then put the memory to rest for all time,

For he absconded once...just the once it was...
To avoid being chastised for something foolish he did,
And he finished up wandering, forlornly wandering,
His boots freshly caked with the purest English soil,
Long, long ago in a forgotten field in England.

In every case, there is a sorrow
Attached to advancing age,
And the decline attendant upon it,
Decline physical, mental, emotional,
In every case, there is a sorrow.

But somehow, there is a special sorrow,
In the pathetic tears
Of an ageing man,
Looking back at the thousand plus follies
Of a stupidly misspent youth,

But somehow there is a special sorrow,
Attached to those who look back
With eyes filled with the tears
Of fathomless and torturous regret,
And of promise unfulfilled.

There was a sadness I revered
But never possessed,
Because there was youth
And hope to spare,

But as youth ebbs,
And hope recedes,
I know that sadness for real,
And how sad true sadness feels.

It’s happening again,
Such unbearable pain,
And if my soul is crying
As my heart is breaking, then that’s fine…

I’ve let so many people down,
Lost so many beautiful opportunities
I feel so failed and forlorn,
But is that really such a tragedy?

Perhaps, rather,
It’s a positive thing,
Shouldn’t a true artist be suffering?
At least I’m feeling something…

It’s happening again,
Such unbearable pain,
And if my soul is crying
As my heart is breaking, then that’s fine…

I was sad today;
Because you begged me
To think of your good points,
And I never told you any.

Rest assured there are many,
Very many, I would have liked
To have told you them
There and then.

I tell you so much about my past,
Quite a lot of which is conflictive,
As if several mes
Were struggling for supremacy.

Much of the time,
There was a pretty normal me;
Oh don't get me wrong,
I was always an attention-seeker,

But I really do genuinely struggle
To make sense,
I really do genuinely struggle
To make sense of me in the past.

One day I'd like to go
In search of my past,
Of all the memories
Of my youth.
I cry for all my souvenirs,
And I dream of a future,

Where I can atone
For all the follies
Of my existence,
And where I might
Contemplate my past
In peace at long last.