The sojourns on my journeys number many,
and on my travels would I ever drop a penny.
Paid poor souls to hear their stories told,
quite often starkly bracing, despite their being old
One was told me; of a mountain, - more a hill,
that lost his lover long ago, - yet still,
from out its crumbling face, it wept,
and soggied all his tree-built beard, unkept.
The tilled groves below, the people knew,
were well-drenched by his sadness too.
The wiser folk warned of the mountain's spring,
But so-named Melancholies ignored everything.
They swallowed water, far surpassed their thirst,
and limply floated in the fount face first.
All of them by daylight sung and cried,
but moaned and screamed at nighttime's noose-hung bride.
The wiser folk heard these on the breeze,
and spied far lanterns wander through the trees.
Then after days passed without nary sound nor sight,
aptly feared the Melancholies victims of some ghastly plight.
A group gathered, to travel to the wood,
to find the errant Melancholies, if they could.
Their houses had no food, - though every cup,
held water, green and cold; the walls and floorboards all scratched up.
The distraught village folk next found some recent tracks.
They followed footprints, shoes, belts, discarded packs.
The dark, dense, trees huddled 'round the trails,
and chilly winds muffled distant heady screams and manic wails.
The sun was low, and yonder tracks had stopped,
where it was flat and mossy rocks outcropped.
A broad and subtle alcove was this place,
there the village found, strewn about the space:
More clothes and boots, and trinkets everywhere,
amid mattered tufts, - what looked like human hair.
The villagers all shuddered, but pushed still further on,
Past the telltale wares whose owners were long gone.
The rocks next flattened all about a pool,
tear-shaped and still the water, green and cool.
On the dimly glinting water's edge, a cup.
Lo, - multitudes were there, all without a sup.
The water's source, leaked out the alcove's back,
Horizontal and curved downward was a crack.
And on the split, in dark clay drawn, an eye,
'twas closed and sad, - the water did it cry.
The searching party was dismayed, but still,
called out, then cast up and down the hill.
Were night when they regrouped around the source,
with no one found, - to make their downward course.
The icy winds then pushed aside the shroud,
of a dank and white-cold blinding foggy cloud.
Unveiling the Night-Bride swinging suspended in the air,
who lit the scene on high, with rays like glass-green hair.
The village folk headed fast back down onto the trails,
clambering through trees that echoed others' now long-still wails.
Here, they found the Melancholy people who had gone, -
Naked. Nooses round their necks. Shriveled, hanged, and wan.
It's said they felt the sadness in the mountain's cry,
his lover couldn't reach him, and so he sought to die.
The feelings of his tragedy this did some people stir,
so they brought themselves to him, as effigies of her.