The Despairing Lover is an English broadside ballad from the late-17th century, written by Edward Ford.
It is about a man who loses his lover and vows to kill himself, until she saves him by returning at the end of the ballad.
He laments that he is dying of a broken heart, that he is going to become a poor pilgrim and wander the earth telling strangers of his miseries, and that he wishes he could find a deserted place where nobody had ever been before.
Finally, when he decides to simply end his life by stabbing himself with a dagger, his lover runs toward him, smiling and blushing, and tells him not to do it.
In the final stanza, the narrator tells all maidens to listen closely the end of the story, where he proves himself true and she comforts him.