Someone saw that the fruit wasn’t ripe,
And he shook the branch, and it dropped.
Hear the tale of a voice never tried,
For the voice was too soon rudely stopped.

Fate was harder on him than he’d thought,
And the chances were somehow all wrong,
And the strings may have been much too taut,
And off key was the tune of the song.

He started timidly with "do".
But was cut short at once, and so -

And so the chord, cut short, fell flat.
Who was inspired by his voice?
The dog barked fiercely, and the cat -
It hunted mice.

It is so funny, is it not?
He laughed - but never learnt to jest
He’d taste the finest wines, he thought, -
He did not live to know the taste.

He was itching to join in the sport,
Too unsure of himself to begin,
And, like droplets of sweat from the pores,
His young soul oozed from under the skin.

He was trying to learn all the ropes,
He was getting the feel of the court,
He flew high on his first timid hopes
Though they hadn’t yet started the score.

He thought one day he’d know it all,
How could he know he’d trip and fall

Before he sensed the coming dawn,
Before he mused and mulled his fill,
Before he loved the only one
Up to the hilt.

It is so funny, is it not?
He hurried; only to get stalled.
It’s all remained unsolved, all what
He never had time to resolve.

Not a shadow of lie in my song, I vow -
Faithful knight of the purest style,
He would write her long poems on the snow...
Pity all snow melts after a while!

But that was in the great snowfall
And the freedom to write on the snow -
Snow came endlessly, squall after squall.
And he seemed with the whirlwind to float.

He ran, but he ran much too slow
To catch up with the white landau...

He knew that he would never win.
That runner - or the runaway.
The Taurus sign, his Zodiac twin,
Meanwhile lapped at the Milky Way.

It’s all so funny, is it not,
When misses are as good as miles,
And when all shells keep falling short,
When fate guffaws but never smiles.

So funny, is it not? So there!
You laugh - I grin - all in the game.
Horse at full tilt, bird on the air -
And who’s to blame?