heart-stricken

The horror writer says he was heart-stricken as a book lover.

I woke up heart-stricken to have learned that a massive 7.9 magnitude earthquake had killed countless people in my home country, and destroyed so many aspects of Nepal.

In the first, Seneca addresses his mother, who is heart-stricken over his banishment.

“Nor can the imagination picture to itself the half of its horrors. Wives, widowed in an instant by the murderous blast. Daughters smitten with the heart-rending sight of their father’s lifeless corpse! The wailings of agonized females! The piteous grief of the unhurt but heart-stricken spectators! The wounded seamen borne down below! The silent tears and quivering lips of their brave and honest comrades, who tried in vain to subdue or to conceal their feelings! What words can adequately depict a scene like this?”

The most dramatic change of pace was his crooning an anguished, heart-stricken “Bess, Oh Where’s My Bess?”