The Boy

The Boy

The boy just stood and stared
But what he thought and saw I never knew,
Maybe of days long past,
Of meadows sweet with hay and ripened corn,
Of sea gulls and the skylark’s song,
Sea breezes fresh and salty on the lips.
The boy, eyes bright and gentle with the innocence of youth
Yet with the knowledge learnt through childhood fresh to him,
Schools, home, friends, parents, happiness and hurt;
Love, as one loves when one is young,
Instant, deep, yet shallow in its course:
All these thoughts surely showed upon his youthful face.
What would become of him,
His innocence in this old world,
where nothing of the harshness has been changed
And all emotions of the human animal remains,
What would he be like?
This boy, this man at the beginning of his life,
For like the slowly burning candle must
His youth, this life, would dwindle
Down to death and back to this earth’s crust.