CURSE OF EDEN
METHINKS a garden, should it not
Have been a lovesome thing, God wot!
Then why are we, who till the soil,
Condemned to such unending toil?
Why are the lily and the rose
Beset by such relentless foes?
And why the frost, and why the drought?
These are things I can’t make out.
Life is a pageantry of pests;
The gardener never really rests:
We sow in sorrow, reap in pain—
The Curse of Eden comes again.