Nellie Clark by Edgar Lee Masters — Read

I was only eight years old;

And before I grew up and knew what it meant / I had no words for it, except / That I was frightened and told my Mother;

And that my Father got a pistol / And would have killed Charlie, who was a big boy, / Fifteen years old, except for his Mother.

Nevertheless the story clung to me.

But the man who married me, a widower of thirty-five, / Was a newcomer and never heard it / Till two years after we were married.

Then he considered himself cheated, / And the village agreed that I was not really a virgin.

Well, he deserted me, and I died / The following winter.