Of A Mute Poem by John May

He walks- in speechlessness he lulling strolls
Investigating gnarly twigs that fell
And fall'n autumn leaves that languish, lacking souls
Is he within a heaven, or he a hell

The world around him-animated- threats
And he, a foreigner to it doth shy
As too the loneliness that in me frets
I know his state removed from all, but why

Is he, like me, in dreadful mystic state
Is worldly beauty too much for him to bear
Receiving it with joy, but too with fear

Or, and God forbid I ask, is his fate
A curse? Or even worse- does Life not care
That he's caught between the Now and Nowhere