The Vagabond, Grief

"I was once known as Love - a name all too brief,"

Spoke this strange shrouded waif, on a westbound train -

"Losing my hearth, I am turned a thing called Grief."

*

Low sat red sun, our dark cabin in relief -

Though this stranger's voice bore black clouds and rain:

"I was once known as Love - a name all too brief."

*

"Tragedy visited, that ill, dark-dressed thief,"

cried he, visage afire now with twilit pain,

"Losing my hearth, I am turned a thing called Grief."

*

"Yet among cruelest forces, Hope is the chief,"

O'er the rocking sound rose his heartsong, rent twain:

"I was once known as Love - a name all too brief."

*

"Man knows who he is but by holding his fief,"

Wept he now, crad'ling a key on rusted chain,

"Losing my hearth, I am turned a thing called Grief."

*

Something I forgot to mourn, as one lost leaf

Alit within, as the stranger gave last refrain:

"I was once known as Love - a name all too brief;

Losing my hearth, I am turned a thing called Grief."