Break, Break, Break by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

       Break, Break, Break

Break, break, break,
On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.

O, well for the fisherman's boy,
That he shouts with his sister at play!
O, well for the sailor lad,
That he sings in his boat on the bay.

And the stately ships go on
To the haven under the hill;
But O, for the touch of a vanish'd hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!

Break, break, break,
At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.

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The Broken-Hearted by Dennis Lange

                  The Broken-Hearted

A small cross by the busy road, above a tiny mound –
It seems an extra daisy to the travelers homeward bound
Who speed their ways to destinies without a second thought,
Of just another cup of sorrow that the journey brought –
     Just a mother’s broken heart.

It lies beneath the ocean like a corpse beneath the sheets –
A sunken, sullen hull that not a sailor ever greets.
Its captain was not called by either king or queen to court;
Just another ship that sailed that did not reach its port –
     Just a dreamer’s broken heart.

We miss the mark of moodiness within his distant look,
And in the sigh that wishes for the time two lovers took
To hold each other tenderly within a blissful swoon.
But now he’s just a darkened sky that never holds a moon –
     Just another broken heart.

The love that has been offered like a hand stretched out to shake
On a hill that’s not remembered in daily trips we take,
Was fastened by the nails of Rome amid the quaking gloom.
He’s just another casualty for which we’ve scarcely room –
     Just the Father’s broken heart.

If at the end of life, or even at the close of day,
I find, reflecting, that my time was simply passed in play,
Or small pursuits, or habits harmful in their thoughtlessness,
Then I become, in selling my life’s universe for less –
     Just another broken heart.


© Dennis Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2011.

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