The Poetical Works of William Motherwell/Lay of the Broken-Hearted and Hope-Bereaved Men
Lay of the Broken-Hearted and Hope-Bereaved Men.
"Some of those who had been bereaved by these merciless marauders, and would not 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!