Ballad of the Strange Woods

BRETT:
These trees were planted long ago
When humankind was young
And in the intervening years
Poets, saints, and balladeers
Have writ of all the sundry fears
That lie within the woods
The strange, strange woods

And when the winter brings to bear
That cold and creeping night
We huddle 'round the solstice feast
Awaiting daylight from the east
To ward off any howling beast
That wanders from the woods
The strange, strange woods

By now you've likely recognized
The reason in this rhymе
It isn't rivers, rocks, or trees
That make the woods as strangе as these
It's life's unwelcome guarantees
That constitute these woods

The things that make us hurt and grow--
Sudden grief, incessant woe--
They come to all and all will know
The darkness of those woods
The strange, strange woods