Read "Man's Devotion" by James Whitcomb Riley online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
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!
And then -- alas! ah THEN! -- her lover came: / "I come to claim you now -- / My Darling, for I know you are the same, / And I have kept my vow
Through these long, long, long years, and now no more / Shall we asundered be!"
She staggered back and, sinking to the floor, / Cried in her agony:
"I have been false! " she moaned, "_I_ am not true -- / I am not worthy now, / Nor ever can I be a wife to YOU -- / For I have broke my vow!"
And as she kneeled there, sobbing at his feet, / He calmly spoke -- no sign / Betrayed his inward agony -- "I count you meet / To be a wife of mine!"
And raised her up forgiven, though untrue; / As fond he gazed on her, / She sighed, -- "SO HAPPY! " And she never knew / HE was a WIDOWER.