Anyone familiar with the Southern Harmony/shape-note tradition will recognize that the chorus here is a (slight) variation on the hymn "Holy Manna". That title suggested the rhyme with "Pollyanna" which became the source of the lyric idea. One of those rare occasions (for me anyway) where a lyric wrote itself in one sitting.
Lyrics
Fate is kind, fate is cruel
She's learned that lesson
Fortune smiles, fortune frowns
Or just plain ignores you
All is lost, all is lost
The race is over.
Pollyanna lives in exile,
Pollyanna rues the day
That she yielded to her nemesis
Who has sent her far away
Pollyanna lives in exile
Driven from her home sweet home
Disenchanted, disinherited
Left abandoned, left alone.
Even so, even so
A flame burns faintly
She has faith, she has hope
She has scores to settle
Tables turn, empires fall
And doors swing open.
Pollyanna lives in exile
Banished to a foreign strand
Where she plans and plots the overthrow
Of the gloom that grips this land
Pollyanna lives for vengeance
Biding time and tide to turn
Living to confound her enemies
Pollyanna will return.
