The Ultimate Gift

It was dark when he lay a dying man
on his bedroom bed in Haubertan.

For old he was, and good he'd lived,
but still he had to cede a gift.

Two men at his right, two women at his left.
At the foot of his chaise stood his grandson, Shadseft.

Broken and brittle and weakly he spoke,
until out came his words with less than a choke.

"This endowment I'll give, to whichever of you five
will stay with you for the rest of your life."

"How is this so?" asked the chancy one.
"Things fade to ev'ry rising sun."

Said the old, wise man in a reply,
"Do not question my wisdom on the day that I die."

"For I," he continued, "am 83.
You aren't even half as old as me!"

Angrily, the doubter stormed out in a fury.
Said, jokingly, Shadseft, "Seems he's in a hurry!"

The adage went on, and still just as bold,
"This gift is far greater than gold."

"How," spoke a woman, "can it be better than money?
Old man, i feel as if you're trying to be funny."

He said, "I kid you not, young one, though tall,
this bestowal could be the best of all."

She, too, blustered out, holding up her dress,
and without looking back, she ran from the rest.

Now three, had the man, standing beside him,
a sum of one woman and two men.

"This gift," said he, "and truthfully I say,
belongs to me only to give it away."

One more contradiction, now from his right,
looked at him beneath the dim light.

"You claim, mister, that you, only, bear this gift,
but I am sure I could get it at a thrift!"

The old man could not utter a word
before the boy stomped away yelling, "Absurd!"

"This final aspect," he said as he was about to part,
"is that this prize, I promise, comes straight from my heart."

This time, not one disagreed,
but they believed him indeed!

Just before he went up above,
he said to them, "I give you my love."

And the old, wise man drew his last breath,
then, finally, he met his own death.

It was dark when he lay a, now dead, man
on his bedroom bed in Haubertan.