An Awfully Big Adventure

Six weeks still left fore I come of age,
Six- just six!- before encroaches the man,
And perhaps, perhaps the scribbles on this page
The last shall ever be that the boy began.

And if- in fourteen lines of a sonnet-
That boy could compress all his twenty-one years,
The page needs must have fairy-dust on it,
The ink would run with sweet and bitter tears,

As this page does now. Life, promise me this,
Though deeds you have done me, and favours owe none,
That the next sixty years shall match in their bliss,
These, that have been my first twenty-one.
Grant me this: come time, I'll repay my debenture.

To die will be the end of an awfully big adventure.

Thomas Clark