Read "Song" by James Whitcomb Riley online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
O I would I had a lover! / A lover! a lover! / O I would I had a lover / With a twinkering guitar, / To come beneath my casement / Singing "There is none above her," / While I, leaning, seemed to hover / In the scent of his cigar!
Then at morn I'd want to meet him -- / To meet him! to meet him! / O at morn I'd want to meet him, / When the mist was in the sky, / And the dew along the path I went / To casually greet him, / And to cavalierly treat him, / And regret it by and by.
And I'd want to meet his brother -- / His brother! his brother! / O I'd want to meet his brother / At the german or the play, / To pin a rose on his lapel / And lightly press the other, / And love him like a mother -- / While he thought the other way.
O I'd pitilessly test him! / And test him! and test him! / O I'd pitilessly test him / Far beyond his own control; / And every tantalizing lure / With which I could arrest him, / I'd loosen to molest him, / Till I tried his very soul.
But ah, when I relented -- / Relented, relented! / But ah, when I relented / When the stars were blurred and dim, / And the moon above, with crescent grace, / Looked off as I repented, / And with rapture half demented, / All my heart went out to him!