Читать книгу Undying - Michel Faber - Страница 8

Of Old Age, In Our Sleep

Although there is no God, let us not leave off praying;

for words in solemn order may yet prove to be a charm.

Sickness swarms around us, scheming harm,

plotting our ruin behind our back.

Let us pray we may escape attack.

We do not fear to die, to ebb away.

What we fear is endless days

of torture,

forced intimacy

with a body that is not our own;

carnal knowledge

of our cunning abuser, our disease,

who fears no medicine

and hears no pleas.

Let us not leave off praying.

Let us keep our dream close to our heart:

that life is too high-principled

to linger when it should depart.

Yes, let us not leave off praying.

Not for God our soul to keep

but just to die, of old age, in our sleep.