Love's Lesson

Once I met a little mouse
Beneath an old oak tree.
He tipped his hat,
And there we sat;
The little mouse and me

He leaned against a toadstool,
Twirling a flow’r in hand.
Though quite forlorn,
With clothing torn,
He donned a wedding band.

I said, “What has brought you here,
This cold and blust’ry day?”
He then looked down,
And with a frown,
Said “I’ve been led astray.”

“One day, many years ago,
A lovely mouse I met.
I loved her so,
With face aglow,
Those eyes I’ll ne’er forget.

Oh, my first and only love,
I thought I was hers too.
So then we fled,
Soon to be wed,
How happy, just us two.

But my heart would not allow
To comprehend the truth.
‘Twas just a fling:
A silly thing,
A pleasantry of youth.

I thought that she had loved me,
I found it was not so.
In great despair,
I found her where,
The rivers bend and flow.

She sat atop a wooden boat
And turned her back on me.
She’d not appease,
And on my knees,
I begged her not to flee.

Never once did she look back
As the wooden boat set sail.
For her I cried,
My lovely bride,
It was to no avail.

So, what brings me here you ask?
I’m guided from above.
My days I’ll spend
Until the end
To find my long lost love.”

Then the mouse went on his way
But beside me in the grass
Lay precious thing;
His golden ring!
He’d left it there, alas.

I placed it in my pocket,
A grim lesson to learn.
Love’s never kind,
It makes you blind,
Once gone, it shan’t return.

Once I met a little mouse
Beneath an old oak tree.
‘Cause led astray
By love that day
He never will be free.