The Saddest Story Ever Told

I'm looking for the "The Saddest Story Ever Told" and motivations, please.



Coin
"Try your wings"

Here you go:

[www.solargeneral.com] />

Les

No, that's rascist surely, I am looking for a range of Sad Stories and motivations for writing.

Coin
"Try your wings"

Try Google:

[www.google.com] />

Les

what about Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare?

this will do ?

Maud Muller
John Greenleaf Whittier

Maud Muller on a summer's day
Raked the meadow sweet with hay.
Beneath her torn hat glowed the wealth
Of simple beauty and rustic health.

Singing, she wrought, and her merry gleee
The mock-bird echoed from his tree.
But when she glanced to the far-off town
White from its hill-slope looking down,

The sweet song died, and a vague unrest
And a nameless longing filled her breast,--
A wish that she hardly dared to own,
For something better than she had known.

The Judge rode slowly down the lane,
Smoothing his horse's chestnut mane.
He drew his bridle in the shade
Of the apple-trees, to greet the maid,

And asked a draught from the spring that flowed
Through the meadow across the road.
She stooped where the cool spring bubbled up,
And filled for him her small tin cup,

And blushed as she gave it, looking down
On her feet so bare, and her tattered gown.
"Thanks!" said the Judge; "a sweeter draught
From a fairer hand was never quaffed."

He spoke of the grass and flowers and trees,
Of the singing birds and the humming bees;
Then talked of the haying, and wondered whether
The cloud in the west would bring foul weather.

And Maud forgot her brier-torn gown
And her graceful ankles bare and brown;
And listened, while a pleased surprise
Looked from her long-lashed hazel eyes.

At last, like one who for delay
Seeks a vain excuse, he rode away.
Maud Muller looked and sighed: "Ah me!
That I the Judge's bride might be!

"He would dress me up in silks so fine,
And praise and toast me at his wine.
"My father should wear a broadcloth coat;
My brother should sail a pointed boat.

"I'd dress my mother so grand and gay,
And the baby should have a new toy each day.
"And I'd feed the hungry and clothe the poor,
And all should bless me who left our door."

The Judge looked back as he climbed the hill,
And saw Maud Muller standing still.
"A form more fair, a face more sweet,
Ne'er hath it been my lot to meet.

"And her modest answer and graceful air
Show her wise and good as she is fair.
"Would she were mine, and I to-day,
Like her, a harvester of hay.

"No doubtful balance of rights and wrongs,
Nor weary lawyers with endless tongues,
"But low of cattle and song of birds,
And health and quiet and loving words."

But he thought of his sisters, proud and cold,
And his mother, vain of her rank and gold.
So, closing his heart, the Judge rode on,
And Maud was left in the field alone.

But the lawyers smiled that afternoon,
When he hummed in court an old love-tune;
And the young girl mused beside the well
Till the rain on the unraked clover fell.

He wedded a wife of richest dower,
Who lived for fashion, as he for power.
Yet oft, in his marble hearth's bright glow,
He watched a picture come and go;

And sweet Maud Muller's hazel eyes
Looked out in their innocent surprise.

Oft, when the wine in his glass was red,
He longed for the wayside well instead;

And closed his eyes on his garnished rooms
To dream of meadows and clover-blooms.

And the proud man sighed, and with a secret pain,
"Ah, that I were free again!

"Free as when I rode that day,
Where the barefoot maiden raked her hay."

She wedded a man unlearned and poor,
And many children played round her door.

But care and sorrow, and childbirth pain,
Left their traces on heart and brain.

And oft, when the summer sun shone hot
On the new-mown hay in the meadow lot,

And she heard the little spring brook fall
Over the roadside, through a wall,

In the shade of the apple-tree again
She saw a rider draw his rein;

And, gazing down with timid grace,
She felt his pleased eyes read her face.

Sometimes her narrow kitchen walls
Stretched away into stately halls;

The weary wheel to a spinet turned,
The tallow candle an astral burned,

And for him who sat by the chimney lug,
Dozing and grumbling o'er pipe and mug,

A manly form at her side she saw,
And joy was duty and love was law.

Then she took up her burden of life again,
Saying only, "It might have been."

Alas for the maiden, alas for the Judge,
For rich repiner and household drudge!

God pity them both and pity us all,
Who vainly the dreams of youth recall.

For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: "It might have been!"

Ah, well! for us all some sweet hope lies
Deeply buried from human eyes;

And, in the hereafter, angels may
Roll the stone from its grave away!

Here's a link to a thread that was on the General Discussion forum some time ago called "Poems that make you cry." Perhaps some of these will provide what you need.

[tinyurl.com] />

Les



Post Edited (04-17-05 01:28)

"This is the saddest story I have evr heard..."
The opening of The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford.

These are good so far, I'll tell you why I'm so interested..

A while back a friend of mine told me about a recent trip he took down south and happened to mention an event which he quoted as being the "saddest story he had ever heard", there was just "something" about the tone of his voice that compelled me to check it out. Greyfriar's Bobby is quite a sad story dontcha think?!, Lassie too and of course there's the mushroom eaters but that one's not so widely known.

Coin
"Try your wings"

And to add athird to your dogs, what about Gelert?

..and and The Incredible Journey!!

Coin
"Try your wings"

The modern antiquarian
[www.themodernantiquarian.com] />
Not that sad but quite incredible.

Coin
"Out of the strong came forth sweetness"

Take it from me, the saddest story will never be written 'cause the person undergoing the sadness will know right away that if the story is written, how many ideas it will give to the wicked to make many more others sad. No offence.

I couldn't make any sense out of that, let alone take offence.

Sorry, just understood it I think I see what you mean, happy happy.

Thanks

Coin
"Try your wings"



Post Edited (04-27-05 12:37)

I found Oscar Wilde's 'The Happy Prince' terribly sad when I was a young boy and I still find it heart-breaking today. The unremarked martyrdoms of the gilded statue and the 'swallow, little swallow'. There is also of course Little Nell from Dicken's 'Old Curiosity Shop' whose death caused a wave of grief the whole world over.

Interesting to see Little Nell and a work by Oscar Wilde cited in the same post, as Wilde famously said that only someone with a heart of stone wouldn't laugh at the death of Little Nell.
There's a wonderful cartoon by Charles Addams: a cinema full of people. All of them are weeping except for one little man who is laughing uproariously.

How about the dog stories, Old Yeller and Where the Red Fern Grows?


Les

I'm still scarred from seeing Old Yeller. I've never trusted Disney since.

It's not Disney's fault this time- that's how the book ends. Sounder is another throat-cutter.

pam

The children's book, I'll Love You for Always is incredibly sad to me- can't think of the author. Also, Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree.

pam

No, Incredible Journey has a happy ending. Gelert is sad, though- the dog protects the baby and the stupid owner misinterprets things and kills the dog.

pam

In Strickland Gillilan's poem ' The Reading Mother' posted recently elsewhere on this site, there is reference to Celert, rather than Gelert, but the context is that of Gelert. I was curious so I went googling and found this www.data-wales.co.uk/beddgelert.htm , which asserts the story is a myth produced by those inventive Victorians.

I've always felt dreadful about Gelert's fate and am releived to think that it was, like little Nell's death, a product of the Victorian imagination.

And there's always "Little Jim" by E. Farmer.
[poeticportal.net]

Okay, that one's right up there with Beth March.

pam

I always found the Incredible Hulk very sad, not great literature but very sad, The littlest hobo is another, "Maybe Tomorrow" he'd want to settle down. Has he?

Coin
"Try your wings"

did anyone mention bambi yet? Or lassie?

Oh boy, did I cry.

E.T made me cry.

Coin
"Try your wings"

A fairly new addition to this category would be "The Christmas Shoes" on TV the last two Christmas seasons. I'm rather a stoic, but this story had me bawling like a baby.

The saddest story I've ever heard is one, which was written by my boyfriend.
It tells about a young girl who loves a black person und noone can understand her, in the end she commits suicide.
It is soooo sad...
but regrettably it is written in german other ways iI would tell you the link

Please don't wonder about how many mistakes are in my reply, I'm just a 15 years old german girl and not very good at english
bye, ingrid

Yes Ingrid, a very sad story.

Crocodile Dundee!!!!!, totally in tears!!

Coin

Yeah, but for Crocodile Dundee, we were crying at the bad acting.

pam

No Pam, you can't sat that, Crocodile Dundee was deep!!

..anyway, not sad exactly:

Stories that defy classification
[pindeldyboz.com] />
Coin

Possibly so, but Linda Kozlowski's character was, erm, well-rounded. I seem to remember a wet t-shirt scene as well, always a crowd pleaser.

For a poetic expression of maximum sadness, there's this one from Pablo Neruda, as translated by W.S.Merwin:


Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
Write, for example, 'The night is starry
and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is starry and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight tries to find her as though to bring her closer.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tries to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another's. She will be another's. As she was before my kisses.
Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.