The Garden

He’s alone in a tree;
He sings, but who hears?
He sees around him a vast waste,
The pond five yards away, a desert,
The fruit, a mockery,
The syrinx’ work a meaningless essay.
His friends do not hear, his enemies take no warning,
His lovers are no more;
He has passed alone into that heaven of human delights,
A bountiful feast, a burbling creek, a beautiful landscape alive with birds’ music,
And panicked and desolate he hasn’t yet understood.