This Is Not The Eden Land Poem by Thomas Noel Smith

This is not the Eden land
This is the paradise lost

A generation of fairy flights
To distant galaxies…
All the childhood memories
That never were.

Adults of eight who learned too fast,
Forgot too quickly childhood toys,
Bouncing balls and paper dolls.

But where did they go…
That generation lost?
To clouds of smoke
And dust of angel white.

This is not the Eden land
This is the paradise lost

Where are the teddy bears that kept them warm
And gave them comfort when they cried?
Where are the soft brown puppy dogs?

Where are the bright-eyed wonders
That they once knew…
Giant trees that touched the sky
And clear running streams.
That forever flowed….
Where did they go-
The childhood days of innocence?

Into life without the dreams
Life without make-believe….
Innocence lost, sophistication found too soon.

Now alive in a stark new world
Where birthing storks don’t ever fly
And eight tiny reindeer
Never mount to the sky

Thumbelina’s heart is empty now
She stands on a lamp-lit street
And sells her wares to dreamless men.
As Hans Christian Anderson weeps from his grave.

And somewhere, alone
Peter Pan prepares for flight
As he dreams of forgotten Tinkerbell.

“Tink Tink where are you, girl?
Why have you left me here? ”
And in cocaine dreams he calls in ecstasy
To Captain Hook and Smee.
Then Peter Pan flies away
Into a starless sky,
To Neverland.

This is not the Eden land
This is the paradise lost