A marble statue stands in a withered garden shelter, its body tense with alarm or protest, as if a single movement has been stopped forever. Around it, the scene is quiet and slightly decayed: vines form sharp patterns, a fountain barely flows, and trees scrape against the sky. Birds—quails and pheasants—move slowly past the statue, dragging their tails. They are alive but subdued, almost as formal and still as the stone figure.
The speaker feels that the restless energy of life has drained away; whatever is forsaken can now rest. Yet the statue’s lifted heel still suggests an urge to flee. The birds’ whistle, the one living sound, dies against her stone chest. The mood is eerie and elegiac, mixing calm with a faint, unresolved longing for escape.