The Forsaken Man

Songbirds pipe their melodies
On green clad boughs of leafy trees
And cattle chew their cud at ease
By shady hedge in lush green leas.

And multicoloured butterflies
Flit to and fro in sunny skies
And skylark pipes his merry Lay
On this bright evening in late May.

Beside his porch door old Ned stood
Listening to birds sing in the wood
Old Ned a well built loner type
Thoughtful and sad faced smoked his pipe.

A luckless sort of man poor Ned
With silver hair on balding head
A pensioner in his sixty ninth year
With bright grey eyes bedimmed with tears.

And all around the voice of bliss
The sound of wildborn happiness
The pleasant scent like sweet perfume
Of glowing wildflowers in their bloom.

But old Ned felt aloof from this
His heart was touched by loneliness
He felt in sad reflective mood
The side effects of solitude.

His mind went back in years and time
When he was young and in his prime
He had his wife and Tim their boy
And living life to him meant joy.

With pretty wife and growing son
Ned felt like god's own chosen one
And gift of happiness he knew
A gift enjoyed by very few.

Ned worked to earn a livelihood
As a tree planter in State owned wood
And tree planting is no easy job
For a man to earn his living bob.

The work was hard and the hours were long
But Ned was young and his back was strong
And he laboured for the take home pay
With bended back ten hours a day.

And though planting of young forest trees
Is toilsome work as hard can be
Yet not even work of the hardest kind
Is hard on man with happy mind.

But happiness can oft be like a flower
That bloom and glow in summer hour
That quickly age and fade away
And lose it's petals and decay.

And happiness with Ned had such brief stay
It ended on an august day
When he came home early from work and found his wife Nan
In bed with her secret love man.

The infuriated tree planter lost his head
And he dragged the young man from the bed
And banged his head ten times or more
Against the hard board bedroom floor.

From the beating his wife's lover nearly died
And Ned in jury court was tried
For the attempted murder on the life
Of the adulterous lover of his wife.

The jury returned a verdict of guilty
But due to circumstance the judge he acted leniently
And sentenced the tree planter from Greenwood Vale
To three years in the County jail.

Those years in jail were years of woe
The days were long and time dragged slow
And the nights were dark and drear as hell
In his cold and gloomy prison cell.

But one hope made bright the melancholy
And eased his sense of misery
And he waited in expectancy
For a visit from his family.

But his reconciliation hopes proved all in vain
As his wife and son they never came,
His wife's lover took them both from him
Whilst he was in the County pen.

His wife and son he never more did see
As they sailed for land beyond the sea
With the man who'd caused him much regret
The one he'd almost beat to death.

On leafy boughs birds carolling
And skylark in the heavens sing
And hedgerows buzz with nestling sound
And voice of happiness abound.

And sleepy fishes bask and dream
In sunlit pool bed of the stream
And swift winged swallows dip and sail
O'er flower decked meads of Greenwood vale.

Golden sunshine and songbird bliss
But one lonely heart amidst all this
Where joy and peace play major part
There's still room left for lonely heart.

Beside his porch door old Ned stand
With pipe in mouth and stick in hand
And teardrops in his eyes of grey
On this delightful evening in May.