The wind is howling through the winter night,

Like to a pack of angry wolves that cry.

My hapless willows bend before its might;

Their broken branches in the garden lie.

Alas, my heart, thy love since childhood’s days

Hath wept; thy dream was understood by none.

Seek not in vain a friend to know thy ways—

The soul is born eternally alone.

Thou from thy hopeless heart that love shalt cast—

That child of earth, false, illegitimate:

Shalt fling it to the night and wintry blast—

Out in the storm—there let it find its fate.

There motherless and orphaned let it weep,

And let the wind its sobbings onward bear

Unto some desert place, or stormy deep—

But not where human soul its voice may hear.

The wind is howling in its agony

All through this snow-bound night, with piercing cry;

Alas, beneath the broken willow tree

My shattered love lies dying—let it die.