This is not the young child in the garden,
nor the adolescent dream turned to man,
I have forsaken sunlight for wages,
now a wreck of my optimistic plan.

No longer a hero of my struggles,
instead the wine-corrupted loss of will,
I'm fading by degrees in this sorrow;
the erosion of an archaic mill.

I am not the pilgrim of devotion,
of revolution and eternal rite,
instead but the crux of sorry failure
and future life lived in calcified plight.

This is not the adventure advertised,
it lives in brief moments like peace and snow;
as fleeting as the shy British summer,
passing like suffering felt long ago.

Oh, this is not the young babe held in autumn,
nor the cooing eyes of all adults blessed,
this is the braying and sharp reminder
of a life with all innocence undressed.