The Broken Ties of happier days,
    How often do they seem
To come before our mental gaze.
    Like a remembered dream;
Around us each dissevered chain,
I    n sparkling ruin lies.
And earthly hand can ne'er again
    Unite those Broken Ties.

The parents of our infant home,
    The kindred that we loved,
Far from our arms perchance may roam.
    To distant scenes removed,
Or we have watched their parting breath,
    And closed their weary eyes,
And sighed to think how sadly death
    Can sever human ties.

The friends, the loved ones of our youth,
    They too are gone or changed,
Or worse than all, their love and truth
    Are darkened and estranged;
They meet us in the glittering throng
    With cold averted eyes,
And wonder that we weep our wrong,
    And mourn our Broken Ties.

Oh !  who in such a world as this,
    Could bear their lot of pain,
Did not one radiant hope bliss
    Unclouded yet remain?
That hope the Sovereign Lord has given,
    Who reigns beyond the skies;
That hope unites our souls to Heaven,
    By Faith's enduring ties.

Each care, each ill of mortal birth,
    Is sent in pitying love,
To lift the lingering heart from earth,
    And speed its flight above;
And every pang that rends the breast,
    And every joy that dies,
Tell us to seek a safer rest,
    And trust to holier ties.

The ties that bind us are the very ones that separate us.
We have shared a lot of things in common;
And yet most of those common things put a barrier between us.
We have laughed at the same jokes,
Danced to the same drums,
Rejoiced to similar songs,
And sang in similar tunes;
The ties that bind us together.
And yet our differences are always ever apparent.

For as I laugh with tears in my eyes,
You laugh with your teeth,
Hiding the very emotion that binds us from the world to see;
As I dance to the budima drums,
You dance to the drum beats of the kuomboka,
Having the sound that binds us, separate us by how its produced.
I dance to ching’ande and you dance to mfukutu,
Excusing the world from seeing our similar steps.

Oh, the ties that bind us.
I sang Jesus loves me when you sang give me the bible;
Spreading your words in Bemba as I spread mine in Tonga.
How the ties that bind us are so quick to separate us.

Wow, I say to myself as I look at you standing right in front of me.
The bonds of our ties grow stronger as we grow older,
And yet weaker with the passage of time;
We share from the same vein, bound by blood forever;
And yet the differences in the ******* that provided for us separate us.
We come from the same womb,
And yet the little differences in the arrangement of our protein molecules make us different.
Indeed the ties that bind us.

Our mother rejoices in calling us all her children;
And yet the men that take pride in us differ.
Our father sings songs of the products of his manhood;
And yet the women that sing along with him sing differently.
He is the tie that binds;
And he the one that separates us.