BEREFT
Where had I heard this wind before
Change like this to a deeper roar?
What would it take my standing there for,
Holding open a restive door,
Looking down hill to a frothy shore?
Summer was past and the day was past.
Sombre clouds in the west were massed.
Out on the porch’s sagging floor,
Leaves got up in a coil and hissed,
Blindly struck at my knee and missed.
Something sinister in the tone
Told me my secret must be known:
Word I was in the house alone
Somehow must have gotten abroad,
Word I was in my life alone,
Word I had no one left but God.
Robert Frost
Photo credit: Jean Guichard
bereave [bih-reev]
verb (used with object), be·reaved or be·reft, be·reav·ing.
-to deprive and make desolate, especially by death (usually followed by of):
Illness bereaved them of their mother.
-to deprive ruthlessly or by force (usually followed by of):
The war bereaved them of their home.
– Obsolete . to take away by violence.
ORIGIN OF BEREAVE
before 900; Middle English bereven, Old English berēafian; cognate with Dutch berooven, German berauben, Gothic biraubōn. See be-, reave1
RELATED FORMS
be·reave·ment , noun
be·reav·er , noun
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