There lives a poet beyond the trees
But all that he writes is pain,
He spends his evenings down on his knees
Regretting the way he came,
He thinks of the path he should have trod
And the path that he really took,
Then writes regrets in a verse to God
And places them all in a book.

A single book on an altar there
That nobody else will see,
He won’t let anyone read his verse
For, ‘That’s between God, and me!’
But he reads and writes them over again
And his tears will stain his cheek,
‘They’re only the faults of mortal men,’
He thinks, but they make him weep.

He weeps for the loss of an innocence
That he barely remembers now,
It seems so long since his world went wrong
Yet he cannot imagine how.
He tried so hard to be godly then
But the good in his deeds went sour,
And hurt so many he knew back when,
He lies in his bed, to cower.

His heart had leapt on the wings of love
It brought him a purer truth,
He thought she came from the lord above
But all that she had was youth,
And time and fortune had withered that
As the tone in her voice went harsh,
It went from roses and sweet perfume
To the croak you hear in the marsh.

Would nothing pleasant inspire his verse,
Would nothing brighten his day?
He’d sit and chew on his feather quill
And search for something to say.
There must be more to a life than this
For others were doing well,
While he would brood on the sadder bits,
Imagining life as hell.

A girl went wandering though the trees
Carolling loud and clear,
It brought the poet up from his knees
And straining so he could hear,
She sang the song of a trilling bird
And the poet’s eyes were bright,
His heart leapt higher the more he heard
And he took her home that night.

His verses now hold the sweet refrain
Of a birdsong, light and free,
He wields his quill with an inner thrill,
‘How could this happen to me?’
The book of pain on the altar’s stained
With neglect, and barely a nod,
‘I’ll take this life with my darling wife
And I’ll leave the rest to God!’

David Lewis Paget