Woman's faith, and woman's trust—Write the characters in the dust;
Stamp them on the running stream,
Print them on the moon's pale beam,
And each evanescent
Shall be clearer, firmer, better,
And more permanent,
I ween,
Than the thing those letters mean.
I have strain'd the spider's thread'Gainst the promise of a maid;
I have weigh'd a grain of sand'Gainst her plight of heart and hand;
I told my true love of the token,
How her faith proved light, and her word was broken:
Again her word and truth she plight,
And I believed them again ere night.
From the novel The Betrothed.
