Read "The Doubt" by William Dean Howells online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
She sits beside the low window, / In the pleasant evening-time, / With her face turned to the sunset, / Reading a book of rhyme.
And the wine-light of the sunset, / Stolen into the dainty nook, / Where she sits in her sacred beauty, / Lies crimson on the book.
O beautiful eyes so tender, / Brown eyes so tender and dear, / Did you leave your reading a moment / Just now, as I passed near?
Maybe, 'tis the sunset flushes / Her features, so lily-pale; / Maybe, 'tis the lover's passion, / She reads of in the tale.
O darling, and darling, and darling, / If I dared to trust my thought; / If I dared to believe what I must not, / Believe what no one ought, --
We would read together the poem / Of the Love that never died, / The passionate, world-old story / Come true, and glorified.