OH! I did love her dearly, <br />And gave her toys and rings, <br />And I thought she meant sincerely, <br />When she took my pretty things. <br />But her heart has grown as icy <br />As a fountain in the fall, <br />And her love, that was so spicy, <br />It did not last at all. <br /> <br />I gave her once a locket, <br />It was filled with my own hair, <br />And she put it in her pocket <br />With very special care. <br />But a jeweller has got it,-- <br />He offered it to me,-- <br />And another that is not it <br />Around her neck I see. <br /> <br />For my cooings and my billings <br />I do not now complain, <br />But my dollars and my shillings <br />Will never come again; <br />They were earned with toil and sorrow, <br />But I never told her that, <br />And now I have to borrow, <br />And want another hat. <br /> <br />Think, think, thou cruel Emma, <br />When thou shalt hear my woe, <br />And know my sad dilemma, <br />That thou hast made it so. <br />See, see my beaver rusty, <br />Look, look upon this hole, <br />This coat is dim and dusty; <br />Oh let it rend thy soul! <br /> <br />Before the gates of fashion <br />I daily bent my knee, <br />But I sought the shrine of passion, <br />And found my idol,--thee. <br />Though never love intenser <br />Had bowed a soul before it, <br />Thine eye was on the censer, <br />And not the hand that bore it.<br /><br />Oliver Wendell Holmes<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/lines-by-a-clerk/
