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Julien: may he laugh and sing
• I HAVE written an elegy for my dear late friend Julien Gross whose obituary you carried (December 31).
Julien Gross : may he laugh and sing as he was wont and have less cause to grumble
Of those who get old and wear purple, people say,
‘How charmingly eccentric!’
At those who get old, wear purple, and make scenes,
People go, ‘Tsk, tsk.’
When you got old, wore purple, and took stands,
People said, ‘Is that appropriate at your age ?’
You laughed, ‘I was doing it before you were born.’
People said, ‘But it was a different world then.’
You replied, ‘Look at this hand, this face.
People had them then, too: hands and faces.
Hands and faces and hearts.’
Then you began to sing.
And the song came from then
And rolled on to now
And even after now.
You sang about pain
About joy despite pain
About the joy of fighting pain
About how there could be less pain and more joy in the world.
You grumbled that the world had not listened to your song.
But we have heard it, that song of yours,
And we will sing it in your voice,
Whether we wear purple or not,
'til the world hearkens.
Robert Ilson
Honorary Research Fellow,
University College London
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