Silent Spring (The Outsider Returns)

 

Alone and palely loitering
I wander lonely as a cloud
Through necroterran Silent Spring,
Engulfed in smoggy shroud.

Through cadmium allotment grounds,
Across eutrophicated meres
I wend my way, while on the sounds
Inert, I shed my tears.

My eye all-seeing turns to where
The ocean desert lams the shore,
Five reservoirs of life lie bare,
Slain in defiance of my law.

In vain, I search for woodland green,
Did I not forest all the land?
Yet arboreal as marine
Has perished by his hand.

So too the creatures of the air:
The birds and bats, for on the wing
No eagle stalks his lofty lair,
And no birds sing.

No insects crawl, no spider’s web
Is spun to trap unwary flies,
What life remains is on the ebb,
In conurbation lies.

Into the city’s dusty heart
I pass, with grim forboding frown,
Through asphalt maze and concrete park:
A haze of grey and brown.

And so at length I turn to Man,
The way he was when Love was grown;
What happened to my wondrous plan?
How was this poison sown?

Now when I look at what is born
From Eden’s kind and tender womb,
I see not mirrored in such spawn
My goodness, but the tomb.

Would that in rage I had destroyed
Mu handiwork, for much less ill
Had come of making Mankind void -
Instead, I gave Free Will.

Free Will to live which was abused,
And used to nurture suffering
In haste of wealth,
By dint of health
To every living thing;
Now is the price
Of reckless vice
A world where no birds sing.

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