Man's Devotion
A lover said, 'O Maiden, love me well,
For I must go away:
And should ANOTHER ever come to tell
Of love--What WILL you say?'
And she let fall a royal robe of hair
That folded on his arm
And made a golden pillow for her there;
Her face--as bright a charm
As ever setting held in kingly crown--
Made answer with a look,
And reading it, the lover bended down,
And, trusting, 'kissed the book.'
He took a fond farewell and went away.
And slow the time went by--
So weary--dreary was it, day by day
To love, and wait, and sigh.
She kissed his pictured face sometimes, and said:
'O Lips, so cold and dumb,
I would that you would tell me, if not dead,
Why, why do you not come?'
The picture, smiling, stared her in the face
Unmoved--e'en with the touch
Of tear-drops--HERS--bejeweling the case--
'Twas plain--she loved him much.
And, thus she grew to think of him as gay
And joyous all the while,
And SHE was sorrowing--'Ah, welladay!'
But pictures ALWAYS smile!
And years--dull years--in dull monotony
As ever went and came,
Still weaving changes on unceasingly,
And changing, changed her name.
Was she untrue?--She oftentimes was glad
And happy as a wife;
But ONE remembrance oftentimes made sad
Her matrimonial life.--
Though its few years were hardly noted, when
Again her path was strown
With thorns--the roses swept away again,
And she again alone!
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poem by James Whitcomb Riley
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