Woman's Faith

WOMAN'S faith, and woman's trust --
Write the characters in dust ;
Stamp them on the running stream,
Print them on the moon's pale beam,
And each evanescent letter
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.