LAY OF THE BROKEN-HEARTED AND HOPE-BEREAVED NEB by WILLIAM MOTHERWELL

"Some of those who had been bereaved by these merciless marauders, and would
be comforted, then paced towards the hills, and looked back on the scenes of
their youth. They sang with melancholy scorn and embittered passion, this
querulous ditty, which later generations have remembered as the 'Lay of the
Broken-hearted and Hope-bereaved men,' who went up to the hollowed mountain,
where they shut themselves up in a cavern, building up its mouth strongly
with huge stones; and there, in sunlessness and unavailing sorrow, these
broken-hearted ones died." -- MOTHERWELL.

THE rude and the reckless wind,
ruthlessly strips
The leaf that last lingered on
old forest tree;
The widowed branch wails for
the love it has lost;
The parted leaf pines for
Its glories foregone.
Now sereing, in sadness, and
quite broken-hearted,
It mutters mild music, and
swan-like on-fleeteth
A burden of melody,
musing of death,
To some desert spot where,
unknown and unnoted,
Its woes and its wanderings may
both find a tomb,
Far far from the land where
it grew in its gladness,
And hung from its brave branch,
freshly and green,
Bathed in blythe dews and
soft shimmering in sunshine,
From morn until even-tide,
A beautiful joy!

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