TOLKIEN HAD THE WORDS FOR IT: 8 THE SEA-BELL

Houses were shuttered, wind round them muttered,
roads were empty. I sat by a door,
and where drizzling rain poured down a drain
I cast away all that I bore:
in my clutching hand some grains of sand,
And a sea-shell silent and dead.
Never will my ear that bell hear,
never my feet that shore tread,
never again, as in sad lane,
in blind alley and in long street
ragged I walk. To myself I talk;
for still they speak not, men that meet.

The Adventures of Tom Bombadil

(See also https://www.academia.edu/3168237/What... )

I have reflected lately that this closing stanza may reflect something of bereavement as well as general alienation - based purely on my own experience.