The Shepherd's Strain

The Shepherd's Strain

Sitting amid an audience of trees,
With the flute kissing his lotus-lips
He wafted soft tunes into the breeze
And sent me the touch of his fingertips.

This tune, at first, it gently flew,
Meandering here and there,
Till at last it approached me too
Having had been everywhere.

Past the fence and past the tree
Fast it came to where I stood
And with its magic enslaved me -
Oh! That sound of flesh and wood.

It tingled every part of me
From head to toe, right and left
I was, by it, so unashamedly
Between wife and lover cleft.

And they ask me why I fled
Leaving a husband with his food,
Where and how all shame was shed,
What I did and what I should!

Are they stricken, are they sot?
Are they deaf to the very root?
For how else can they hear it not?
The beckoning of the flute!