When by the wayside errant yearnings fall
And rest prostrate along these well-worn routes,
Each tired yearning questions its forestall,
And its brief life it rancorously doubts.

To what end was this luckless yearning born,
And for what did it prematurely die?
Why was it from Hope so roughly torn?
All this and more the yearning does decry.

Its face is camouflaged in travel grime
A steady layer 'massed from passersby.
How the yearning dreams to upward climb,
To empyrial judges fate belie.

Perhaps by force of will it Hope redeems,
Small comfort, dashed upon the path of dreams.

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