These winter days have been cold and grey,
The sun is hidden above,
Much of my life is spent that way
Since I lost my only love,
For the clouds have entered my heart of hearts,
The cold has withered my smile,
Since ever the day she went away,
When I’d been out for a while.

I’d only been gone an hour or two,
Or so I thought at the time,
But when I returned, her clothes were gone,
She even took some of mine.
The house was empty and cold within
With cobwebs lining each room,
And dust had covered the furniture,
It smelt as rank as a tomb.

The phone had been disconnected, and
The power was off at the wall,
I had to fling open the windows
For any fresh air at all.
The weeds in the lawn were three feet high
Like a jungle, out in the yard,
The cat lay dead in the garden shed,
The tyres were flat on the car.

I called around to her mother’s place
To see where she might have been,
Her mother slammed the door in my face
And shouted something obscene.
I panicked then, and I went to see
Where she worked, at Kilroy Square,
But they had a new receptionist,
‘She hasn’t worked here for a year!’

I bought a paper and saw the date,
And at first it looked all right,
It said the 2nd of August, but
The year then gave me a fright.
It was one year on from the date I left
To walk on down by the lake,
I said to the man behind the stand:
‘That year must be a mistake!’

I’d lost a year, and I don’t know where,
The sweat stood out on my brow,
Where had I been in the in-between?
I don’t know, even now.
I went to wander, down by the lake
Where I’d wandered the year before,
And there was Jane, with a look of pain
On a bench by the lakeside shore.

At first, she’d not even look at me,
She wouldn’t answer my plea,
I said, ‘Thank God that I’ve found you, Jane,
Surely you know, it’s me!’
She said, ‘I’ve nothing to say to you,
But maybe you’ll tell me, Why?
You said that you’d not be gone for long,
You’d not even said Goodbye!’

‘I only went for an hour,’ I said,
‘An hour, or maybe two,
I didn’t roam, but I came straight home
And went out looking for you!
I couldn’t believe a year had gone,
I must have been going mad!’
She turned, with a scornful look at me,
‘As it all turned out, I’m glad.’

She showed me the tiny diamond ring
She wore on her wedding hand,
‘I’ve been engaged for a month, to Gage,
I think he’s a better man.’
These winter days have been cold and grey,
The sun is hidden above,
Much of my life is spent that way
Since I lost my only love!

David Lewis Paget